gFjjgjp^;^ikj>^ 










■■^ssasBS 



«*>! Wi^al »« fit^ »t»» jiJ-f^- 



















>' .(.* 






-e. 



^' 











/.•>^%% y*.-^^.% r.o*.Ci^.*°o 




•'-r^'- J> ~%''^^''\^ %*^^\o' ^-'^?ff'\/ 








v^^^-*./ 






t • o 







.^' 



I • 



^•^' 






§: 







"-^^ 






'^^ "-^y^^.^ 



ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 




HENRY MORGENTHAU 



ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 



BY 
HENRY MORGENTHAU 



IN COLLABORATION WITH 

FRENCH S TROTHER 




I LLUSTR A TIONS 

FROM 

PHOTOGRAPHS 



GARDEN CITY 



NEW YORK 



DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1922 






COPi'RIGHT, 1921, 1922, BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION- 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN- 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITV, N. Y. 

First Edition 



QCl ^M^J^^2 



C1A686504 






TO 
MY DEVOTED COMPANION 

MY WIFE 

WHO ORIGINATED SOME, 
AND STIMULATED ALL, 
OF MY BEST ENDEAVOURS 



CONTENTS 

FAOB 

CHAPTEB - 

I. New Worlds for Old ^ 

II. School Days "^ 

III. Apprenticed to the Law 18 

IV. Real Estate ^^ 

V. Finance ^^ 

VI. Social Service ^^ 

VII. Early Political Experiences 109 

VIII. My Entrance into National Politics . . 128 

IX. The Campaign of 1912 150 

X. The Social Side of Constantinople . . 174 

XI. My Trip to the Holy Land 211 

XII. The Campaign of 1916 ^^^ 

XIII. My Meetings with Joffre, Haig, Currie, 

AND Pershing 

XIV. John PuRROY MiTCHEL 

XV. A Hectic Fortnight— and Others ... 287 

XVI. The International Red Cross .... 310 

XVII. The Peace Conference 

S48 
XVIII. My Mission to Poland 

XIX. Zionism A Surrender, Not A Solution . . 385 

. . 407 

Appendix 

. . 441 

Index 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Henry Morgenthau Frontispiece 



FACING PAGE 



Mr. Morgenthau playfully refers to this picture as 
the Morgenthau dynasty 54 

Mr. Morgenthau with Theodore Roosevelt, Charles 

E. Hughes, Oscar Straus, and other distinguished . 

citizens 118 

Mr. Morgenthau as one of the group of financiers, 
doctors, and sociologists who organized the inter- 
national association of Red Cross societies . . 267 

Ignace Paderewski, Premier of Poland, and her rep- 
resentative at Paris 358 "^ 

Joseph Pilsudski, Chief of State of Poland, who was 
not, at first, in sympathy with the American 
Mission 374 '^ 

Rabbi Rubenstein, a leader of the Jewish com- 
munity at Vilna 390 



ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 



ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

CHAPTER I 

NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 

I WAS born in 1856, at Mannheim, in the Grand Duchy 
of Baden. That was the old Germany, very differ- 
ent from the Prussianized empire with which America 
was to go to war sixty years later, and very different again 
from the bustling life of the western world to which I was 
to be introduced so soon and in which I was to play a part 
unlike anything which my most fanciful dreams ever pic- 
tured. 

Indeed, those were days of idyllic simplicity in South 
Germany and especially in that little city on the Rhine. 
The life of the people was best expressed by a word that 
was forever on their lips, geiniltlich, that almost untrans- 
latable word that implies contentment, ease, and satisfac- 
tion, all in one. It was a time of peace and fruitful 
industry and quiet enjoyment. The highest pleasure of 
the children was netting butterflies in the sunny fields; 
the great events of youth were the song festivals and pub- 
lic exhibitions of the "Turners" and walking excursions 
into the country; the recreation of the elders was at little 
tables in the public gardens, where, while the band played 
good music and the youngsters romped from chair to 
chair, the women plied their knitting needles over endless 
cups of coffee, and the men smoked their pipes and sipped 
their beer and talked of art and philosophy— of every- 
thing in the world, except world politics and world war. 

1 



2 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

To us children who had seen no larger city, but had 
visited many small villages in the neighbourhood, Mann- 
heim seemed quite an important town. It was at the 
point where the Neckar flows into the Rhine, and as this 
river flowed through the Odenwald, it constantly brought 
big loads of lumber and also many bushels of grain to 
Mannheim, which had become a distributing centre for 
various cereals and lumber, and was also a great tobacco 
centre. My father had cigar factories at Mannheim and 
also in Lorsch and Heppenheim and sometimes employed 
as many as a thousand hands. Nevertheless, the entire 
population of Mannheim was scarcely 21,000, and the 
thoughts of most of its inhabitants were bent on the sober 
concerns of their every-day struggles and on raising their 
large families, without ambition for great riches or hope of 
higher place. None but the nobles dreamed of such gran- 
deur as a carriage and pair; the successful tradesman only 
occasionally gratified a modest love of display or travel by 
hiring a barouche for a drive through the hop fields and 
tobacco patches surrounding the city to one of the near-by 
villages. Those whose mental powers were of a superior 
order exercised them in a keen appreciation of poetry, 
music, and the drama; Schiller and Goethe were their 
demi-gods, Mozart and Beethoven their companions of 
the spirit. The Grand Duke's fatherly devotion to his 
subjects' welfare had won him their filial affection; with 
political matters they concerned themselves almost not 
at all. 

My childhood recollections reflect the quiet colours of 
this atmosphere. My father was prosperous, and our 
home was blessed by the comforts and little elegancies 
that his means made possible; it shared in the artistic 
interests of the community by virtue both of his interest 
in the theatre and my mother's passion for the best in lit- 
erature and music. I was the ninth of eleven hving 



NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 3 

children, find I recall the visits of the music teachers who 
gave my sisters lessons on the piano and taught my eldest 
brother to play the violin. We children learned by heart 
the poems of Goethe and Schiller and shared the pride of 
all INIannheimers that the latter poet had once lived in 
our city and that his play, "The Robbers," was first pro- 
duced at our Stadt Theatre. 

Those who like to reflect upon the smallness of the 
world will find it amusing to read that among the various 
friends of my family were quite a few with whom we are 
now on the most cordial relations in New York. Our 
physician was Dr. Gutherz, one of whose daughters mar- 
ried my neighbour, Nathan Straus. Their son and mine 
are intimate friends, and, in turn, their sons, Nathan 3d 
and Henry 3d, are now playmates in Central Park. 

Among such associations the first ten years of my life 
were passed. We studied hard, but we played hard, too. 
Nor were our muscles forgotten: we were given regular 
exercises, and great was my pride when I passed the 
"swimming test" one summer's day, by holding my own 
for the prescribed half hour against the Rhine current 
and so winning the right to wear the magic letters R. S. — 
"Rhine-Swimmer" — on my bathing suit. Life was in- 
deed gemiitlich in the Mannheim of that period. 

It was not long, however, before the faraway world of 
America began to knock at our quiet door. A brother of 
my father had joined the gold rush to the Pacific and 
settled in San Francisco; he wrote us tales of the wild, 
free life of California, its adventures! and its wealth. 
•Strange gifts came back from him — a cane for the Grand 
Duke, its head a piece of gold-bearing quartz; for us 
children queer mementoes of an existence that seemed all 
romance. From time to time, this "Gold-Uncle," as we 
called him, gave American friends touring Europe letters 
of introduction to my father, and these visitors enhanced 



4 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the charm of the United States. One such especially 
filled our minds with narratives of easily won riches ; Cap- 
tain Richardson, a bearded Forty-niner, whose accounts 
of the land of opportunity were so much more moving 
than our fairy tales as to affect even my father's mature 
fancy. 

For my father heard them at a moment when, by an odd 
coincidence, an act of the American Congress had caused 
him great damage. In 1862 a tariff had been enacted by 
the United States which greatly increased the duty on 
cigars. For many years the largest part of his produc- 
tion had been exported to the United States. Father 
had a representative in New York, and his brother in San 
Francisco attended to the distribution on the Pacific 
Coast — they both had urged him to rush over all the cigars 
he could and land them before the law should go into ef- 
fect. Unfortunately, the slow freighter that carried the 
last and biggest shipment arrived one day too late. Had 
she docked in time, my life might have been spent differ- 
ently. That day's delay meant the difference between 
profit and disaster to my father; the cigars, which, when 
duty free, would have yielded him a good return, were a 
dead loss when to their cost was added the burden of the 
new tariff charges. These changes in any event would 
have compelled him to seek a new market, as they closed 
America forever to goods of the cheap grade of German 
tobacco. That might have been arranged, but when the 
necessity to seek new fields was coupled with the crushing 
loss sustained upon this shipment, his finances were so 
weakened that he realized he would have to start afresh 
and on a smaller scale. 

This was a heavy blow to the pride of a man who had 
achieved a great business success and was a leading citi- 
zen in his community. The instinct to seek another field 
for the fresh start was fortified by the stories of oppor- 



NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 5 

tunity in the land whose laws had just dealt the hlow. 
He resolved to emigrate to America. 

I remember vividly the excitement in our household that 
was provoked by this momentous decision. Whatever 
may have been the doubts and heartburnings of our 
parents, to us children all was a joyous vista. We were 
happy at the thought of travelling to that far land of 
golden promise and strange people; we had visions only 
of adventure, and we were the envy of our playmates who 
were not to share with us the voyage across the Atlantic 
Ocean or the excitement of Hfe in America. 

The two eldest brothers and one of my sisters went 
ahead of us and established a home in Brooklyn. They 
wrote back their first impressions of New York ; its great 
buildings and its crowded wharves; its masses of busy 
people hastening through the maze of streets and the 
novelty (to us) of horse cars pulled through the streets on 
railroad tracks. These letters gave us fresh thrills of 
emotion and new material for our active fancies. Then 
my father abandoned his now unprofitable business, sold 
his factories and home, packed our household goods and 
furniture, and possessed of about thirty thousand dollars 
in cash— all that remained of his fortune— led his wife and 
remaining eight children upon the expedition. 

I well remember the journey down the Rhine to 
Cologne, where we visited the beautiful cathedral before 
we took the train to Bremen; the solemn interview in the 
latter city at the offices of the North German Lloyd, 
where the last formalities were disposed of; and finally 
settling in our cabins of the slow old steamer Hennann 
as she put forth on her way across the wide Atlantic. 

My memories of the eleven-day voyage itself are rather 
vague. I recall playing around the deck with the other 
family of children on the ship. The daughter of one of 
those httle playmates is now conducting a private school 



6 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

in New York City which three of my granddaughters 
attend. I remember, too, that on the stormiest day of 
our passage, I was proud of being the only child well 
enough to eat his meals, and that the Captain honoured 
me with a seat beside him at his table. 

Now, the newcomer to Arrierica, arriving at New York, 
stands on the deck of a swift liner and is welcomed by the 
Statue of Liberty and overwhelmed by the vaulting office- 
buildings springing high into the blue. I shall tell later 
how I have contributed to the creation of some of them. 
But on that June day of my arrival, in 1866, I simply felt 
that one of the momentous hours in my life had come, 
when I found myself stepping ashore into a vast garden 
of unlimited opportunities. 



CHAPTER II 

SCHOOL DAYS 

MY FAMILY took up their residence at 92 Con- 
gress Street, Brooklyn, which my elder broth- 
ers and two sisters, our pioneers, had prepared 
for us, and though handicapped as we were by our small 
knowledge of English, we younger children began our 
studies at the De Graw Street Public School in the Sep- 
tember following our arrival. Eight months later, on the 
first day of May, 1867, we moved to Manhattan. 

It was a very simple New York to which we came. In 
domestic economy, portieres were unknown, rugs a rarity; 
ingrain carpets, costing about sixty cents a yard, were the 
usual floor coverings; when the walls were papered, it 
was with the cheapest material ; the only bathtubs were of 
zinc, and one to a house was the almost universal rule. 
Our home was No. 1121 Second Avenue, corner of Fifty- 
ninth Street — a three-story, high-stoop brownstone house, 
rows of which were then being erected. It still stands 
there, the high stoop removed from it; stores are in the 
basements; the district has deteriorated to one of cheap 
tenements and small retail businesses. But in those days 
there was an effort to make Upper Second Avenue one 
of the chief residential streets of the city. The house- 
holders were mostly well-to-do Germans— people who had 
prospered on the Lower East Side and had outgrown 
their quarters there. The monotony of the thorough- 
fare was reheved only by the old-fashioned horse car that 
rumbled by every four or five minutes. Like the letter 
carriers of that period, neither the drivers nor the con- 

7 



8 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ductors wore uniforms. The line ended at Sixty-fourth 
Street where the truck-gardens began. On our way to 
Sunday School, at Thirty-ninth Street near Seventh 
Avenue, we would make a short-cut across the site where 
the first Grand Central Station was being erected. 

I had my little difficulties in school: I well remember 
how one of the boys told me that he deeply sympathized 
with me, because I would have to overcome the double 
handicap of being both a Jew and a German. So I 
greatly rejoiced when I saw the steady disappearance of 
the prejudice against the Germans after they had suc- 
ceeded in winning the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. 

About the most picturesque and artistic parade that 
had ever taken place in New York was arranged by all 
the German societies and their sjmipathizers, the singing 
clubs and the turn vereins participating. Non-Germans 
lent their carriages. Among the generous people was 
the famous Dr. Hemholdt, of patent medicine fame. He 
owned a rather fantastic vehicle, which was drawn by five 
horses decorated with white cockades and which he lent 
for the occasion to an uptown club of which my brother 
was the secretary. I was permitted to fill in, so that I saw 
with my own eyes and was deeply impressed by the crowds 
that lined the streets and vociferously and heartily, for 
the first time, gave their unstinted approval of the 
Germans. 

We children did not lose a day in our pursuit of educa- 
tion; for on the very day of our removal to Manhattan, I 
attended Grammar School No. 18, in Fifty-first Street 
near Lexington Avenue. At recess-time we boys used to 
play "tag" on the foundations of St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
the construction of which had been stopped during the 
Civil War. I have very pleasant recollections of my early 
grammar school teachers, and especially of one who later 
was for years Clerk of the Board of Education, the effi- 



SCHOOL DAYS 9 

cient Lawrence D. Kiernan, who, while at School 18, was 
elected to the Assembly as a candidate of the "Young 
Democrats" and whose talks to us pupils on civic duty 
seemed like great orations and gave me my first impres- 
sion of independence in politics. 

Nevertheless, I laboured under two disadvantages — one 
was my Engliali; the difference in structure between my 
native and my adopted language gave me considerable 
trouble; so did the pronunciation of the letters w and d, 
but my greatest difficulty was the diphthong th, and to 
overcome it, I compiled and learned lists of words in which 
it occurred and for weeks devoted some time, night and 
morning, to repeating: "Theophilus Thistle, the great 
thistle-sifter, sifted one sieve-full of unsifted thistles 
through the thick of his thumb." However, as the great- 
est stress was laid on proficiency in arithmetic, and as I 
had a natural aptitude for that study, my proficiency 
there balanced these deficiencies and took me into the 
highest class at the age of eleven. 

It was a general belief that all "Dutchmen" were cow- 
ards, and on the pla3^ground this idea was acted upon with 
considerable spirit. I was made the target of many a 
joke that I took in good part, until I realized that 
something positive was required of me. Then when a 
husky lad taunted me with being a "square-headed Dutch- 
man," and refused my demand that he "take it back," my 
fighting blood was roused, and I administered a sound 
thrashing, the result of sheer, unscientific force. Nothing 
evokes the admiration of the gallant Irish so much as a 
good fight, and the result of that battle was the liking of 
my comrades, and especially one of the leaders among 
them, John F. Carroll, later familiar to New Yorkers as 
a leader in Tammany. 

About this time I made up my mind to enter City Col- 
lege and, to prepare for that, I began looking about for a 



10 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

school which ranked higher than No. 18. There were a 
number of these, foremost among which were the Thir- 
teenth and Twenty-third Street schools. I applied at 
both, but they were full. The next in rank was No. 14, in 
Twenty-seventh Street near Third Avenue, where they 
admitted me to the fourth class. I gladly accepted this 
comparative demotion, so as to utilize advantageously the 
two years remaining before I reached the college-entrance 
age, began my studies there in March of '68, under Miss 
Rosina Hartman, a fine old spinster and a good teacher, 
and finished both her class and the third class before I was 
twelve. 

I was hardly settled in my seat in the second class when 
the following incident took place: 

JNIr. Abner B. Holley, who taught the first class, came 
into the room and complained about the mathematical 
shortcomings of the boys just promoted into his care; he 
explained that in his method of teaching arithmetic, it 
was essential to have someone for leader, as a sort of spur 
for the pupils. He gave us fifteen examples: speed and 
accuracy were to be the tests; and the boy who solved 
them most quickly and correctly was to be promoted. I 
finished first and handed up my slate. Holley carefully 
compared my answers with those on his slip and, before 
any other pupil was ready to submit his work, rapped for 
attention, and said: 

"As these answers are all correct, there is no need of 
any other boy finishing. IVIorgenthau wins the promo- 
tion." 

Being too young to graduate in '69, I remained under 
Holley until June, 1870. He was an excellent instructor, 
and it required no effort on my part to keep the lead in 
mathematics. In fact, he took pride in displaying my 
efficiency, and whenever any trustee, or other visitor, 
came to school, they would have a general assembly of all 



SCHOOL DAYS 11 

the pupils and then he would have me solve promptly some 
such problem in mental arithmetic as computing the in- 
terest on $350 for three years, six months, and twelve days 
at 6 per cent. Thus, as I required little of my time for 
what was, to most of the boys, our most exacting study, 
I devoted all my spare time to improving my pronuncia- 
tion and mastering the spelling of English which is so hard 
for a boy not born to the language. I won 100 per cent, 
perfect marks throughout my second year and when, with 
about nine hundred other boys, I took my City College 
entrance-examination, I was well up among the three 
hundred selected for admission. 

I always look back with pleasure on those years in Pub- 
lic School No. 14. Iron stairways, modern desks, and 
electric lights have been installed since my day; the Irish 
and German pupils have passed, the Italian tide is ebbing; 
on the student list Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, and Ar- 
menian names now predominate — there is sometimes even 
a Chinese name to be found. At exercises there, attended 
by three of my classmates and by Dr. John H. Finley, 
New York's Commissioner of Education, I celebrated, in 
1920, the fiftieth anniversary of my graduation; I took 
the 1,900 pupils to a moving-picture show, and commenced 
my now regular custom of giving four watches twice a 
year to members of the graduating class; but as I then 
reviewed the past and looked at the present, I felt that the 
old spirit had been well preserved and that, whatever the 
nationality of the children who enter the old school, they 
all leave it American citizens. 

When I left there, I had my eyes longingly fixed upon 
the City College, but the law was then already my ulti- 
mate aim and wages were essential, so I spent my 
"vacation" as errand boy and general-utility lad in the 
law offices of Ferdinand Kurzman, at $4.00 a week. In 
those days httle was known of "big business"; there were 



12 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

no vast corporations requiring continuous legal advice, 
and so the lawyers clustered within three or four blocks of 
the court-house; Kurzman's quarters were at 306 Broad- 
way, at the corner of Duane Street. 

My early duties were the copying and serving of papers, 
but the time soon came when, young though I was, I 
was sent to the District Court to answer the calendar and, 
occasionally, fight for an adjournment. Stenographers 
and typewriters being practically unknown, the lawj^er 
would dictate and his clerks transcribe in longhand, make 
the required number of copies with pen and ink and then 
compare the results and correct any errors. It was only 
when more than twenty copies were required that printing 
would be resorted to. 

Such was my existence from June 21st until Septem- 
ber 16, 1870. All the while, I tried to further my edu- 
cation. I had joined the INIercantile Library in the pre- 
vious February. Within a short time, I was attending 
the Cooper Institute classes in elocution and debating, and 
later secured instruction in grammar and composition at 
the Evening High School in Thirteenth Street. I tried 
to do as much good reading as I could, and I find that my 
list for 1871 ranges from Cooper's "Spy," "David Cop- 
perfield," and "The Vicar of Wakefield" to Hume's "His- 
tory of England," Mill's "Logic," and "The Ihad." 

Of my life at City College I wish that I could write 
more, because I wish I had been privileged to graduate 
with the Class of 1875. There were 286 of us, and I 
remember very vividly some of the incidents of my brief 
stay. The halo of military distinction that encircled the 
brow of the president, General Alexander S. Webb, is 
still bright for me, and bright that day when the great 
Christine Nilsson came to our classroom and sang for us. 
Of the faculty, Professor Doremus remains especially 
vivid in my memory; electricity for illuminating purposes 



SCHOOL DAYS Ig 

was at that time confined to powerful arc-lights; he tried 
to explain to us the possibility of some inventor some day- 
subdividing the power in one of those lamps so that it 
could be used to illuminate private houses. Though 
"stumped" in anatomy and chemistry through my un- 
familiarity with the long words employed, I stood well on 
the general roll and was No. 11. My college career 
was rudely ended on March 20, 1871, when my father 
withdrew me and put me to work. His difficulty in mas- 
tering the English language and American commercial 
methods were handicaps too severe for him. He lost 
most of his original money, and his unreinforced efforts 
could not suj^port us all. 

Early in our occupancy of the Second Avenue house, 
the back parlour had to be rented as a doctor's office, and 
shortly after my mother decided that it was her duty to 
take in boarders. I cannot speak of my mother as she was 
during these trials without the deepest emotion. There is 
nobody to whom I owe so much ; there was no debt which 
so profoundly affected my entire career. In Mannheim 
her position had always been one of comfort. I had seen 
her there w^th good friends, good books, good dramas, and 
good music ; she was the mistress of a commodious house, 
with a corps of competent servants, in a city with every 
custom and tradition of which she was intimately familiar; 
respected by the community, the mother of thirteen chil- 
dren, she was cahn, philosophic, considerate of every 
domestic call upon her, not only supervising our educa- 
tion, physical and mental, but also finding time to add 
continuously to her own broad culture. Now a complete 
change had come. She was a stranger in a strange land; 
most of her friends were new; the city of her husband's 
adoption was a puzzle, its manners foreign, its language 
long almost unknown; there was small time for amuse- 
ment; there was, on the contrary, the ever-constant and 



14 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ever-pressing strain of helping, by her own endeavours, to 
make both ends meet. 

All of this deeply affected my young and impression- 
able mind. I feared lest my mother, who was my idol, 
and who was so superior in accomplishments and knowl- 
edge to the people that boarded with us, might, in the 
course of her duties, be compelled to render quasi-menial 
services. Luckily, two things prevented this. On the 
one hand, her wonderful poise and tact and her extraor- 
dinarily sweet nature won so prompt a recognition that 
the least gentle of our lodgers instinctively became wor- 
shippers at her shrine. On the other hand, my sisters, 
themselves bred to comfort, rivalled one another in a 
friendly struggle to shield her from every possible annoy- 
ance. High-spirited girls as they were, they did not hesi- 
tate to assume everything that might in any way hurt her 
sensibilities, and their devotion and self-sacrifice are among 
my tenderest memories. 

Appreciating how things were at home, I became 
quickly reconciled to abandoning textbook education, and 
instead, to plunging into the rough school of life. 

The influence of the beautiful spirit of my mother had 
early given me good ideals and a love of purity, and the 
ebb of the family fortunes developed an irrepressible 
ambition to accomplish four things : to restore my mother 
to the comforts to which she had been accustomed ; to save 
myself from an old age of financial stress such as my 
father's; to give my own children the chances in life that 
were aU but denied to me, and to try to attain a standard 
of thought and conduct consonant with the fine concepts 
that characterized my mother's mind and lips. 

My experiences were not unique, nor were my high re- 
solves exceptionally heroic; they are found in the life 
history of most men. Nevertheless, such histories are not 
often told at first hand, so that what may have been com- 



SCHOOL DAYS 15 

monplace in the happening becomes interesting in the 
narration. Forsaking the chronological order of my 
story, let me look backward and forward in an attempt 
to present this phase of my mental development. 

I was full of energy, and had tremendous hopes as to 
my future success, which gave me a certain assurance that 
was often misconstrued into conceit, but which was really 
a conviction of the necessity to collect religiously a mental, 
moral, physical, and financial reserve guaranteeing the 
realization of my best desires. 

Accordingly, I pursued a rather carefully ordered 
course. At the age of fourteen I had taken very seri- 
ously my confirmation in the Thirty-ninth Street Tem- 
ple, and now I formed the habit of visiting churches of 
many denominations and making abstracts of the sermons 
that I heard delivered by Henry Ward Beecher, Henry 
W. Bellows, Rabbi Einhorn, Richard S. Storrs, T. De 
Witt Talmage, and Dr. Alger, and many others of the 
famous pulpit-orators who enriched the intellectual life 
of INew York. It was the era when Emerson led 
American thought, and I profited by passing my impres- 
sionable years in that period whose daily press was edited 
by such men as Horace Greeley, WilHam CuUen Bryant, 
Charles A. Dana, Henry T. Raymond, and Lawrence 
Godkin. 

There lived with us a hunchbacked Quaker doctor, 
Samuel S. Whitall, a beautiful character, softened instead 
of embittered by his affliction, the physician at the coloured 
hospital, who gave half his time to charitable work 
among the poor. I frequently opened the door for his 
patients and ran his errands, and we became friends. I 
remember his long, religious talks, and how deeply I was 
impressed by Penn's "No Cross, No Crown," a copy of 
which he gave me. Largely because of it I composed 
twenty-four rules of action, tabulating virtues that I 



16 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

wished to acquire and vices that I must avoid. I even 
made a chart of these maxims, and every night marked 
against myself whatever breaches of them I had been 
guilty of. Looking over this record for February and 
March of 1872, I find that I charged myself with derelic- 
tion in not heeding my self-imposed admonitions against 
indulgence in sweets, departures from strict veracity, too 
much talking, extravagance, idleness, and vanity — a heavy 
indictment ! 

The fact is that I had acquired an almost monastic 
habit of mind and loved the conquest of my impulses much 
as the athlete loves the subjection of his muscles to the 
demands of his will. In my commonplace book for 1871 
I find transcribed two quotations that governed me. The 
one is from Dr. Hall's "Happy Old Age" and runs: 

Stimulants . . . are the greatest enemies of mankind; there 
is no middle ground which anyone can safely tread, only that of total 
and most uncompromising abstinence. 

The other is from a sermon of Dr. Channing on "Self- 
Denial." 

Young man, remember that the only test of goodness is moral 
strength, self-decrying energy ... Do you subject to your 
moral and religious convictions the love of pleasure, the appetites, the 
passions, which form the great trials of youthful virtue? No man 
who has made any observation of life but will tell you how often he 
has seen the promise of youth blasted . . . honorable feeling, 
kind affection overpowered and almost extinguished . . . through 
a tame yielding to pleasure and the passions. 

I took these warnings very seriously. 

How the state of mind engendered by these forces 
affected me in a purely material way, we shall soon see. 
From the outset of my business career, when an errand 
boy in Kurzman's office, I found myself surrounded by 



SCHOOL DAYS 17 

employees, not perhaps more vicious than most, but cer- 
tainly sharing the vices of the majority. They gave, at 
best, only what they were paid for, and not an ounce of 
energy or a minute of time beyond. 

I shrank from the possibility of becoming a mere clock 
clerk and gave all of my best self and held back nothing. 
I made mistakes, I had my failures from the standard 
that I had set ; but my purpose held fast and I cheerfully 
pursued the rugged uphill road to success. 




CHAPTER III 

APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 

HEN I left City College, my father wanted me 
to become a civil engineer, but a brief experi- 
ence in an engineer's office convinced me that I 
lacked the requisite mathematical foundation, so I gave 
it up and accepted a position as assistant bookkeeper and 
errand boy at $6 a week in the uptown branch of the 
Phoenix Fire Insurance Company. 

In September, 1871, I improved myself by securing a 
$10 position with Bloomingdale & Company, who were 
then in the wholesale "corset and fancy-goods" business on 
Grand Street near Broadway. I kept the books and also 
helped to pack hoop-skirts, bustles, and corsets until the 
firm's financial difficulties gave me an excuse for turning 
my ambition again to the law. I returned to Kurzman's 
office, January 16, 1872. 

Though Kurzman's perspicacity could pierce directly 
through the intricacies of any tangled case, his accounts 
were shamefully neglected. His check book was his only 
book of entry — he trusted his memory to keep track of 
what his clients owed him — so I voluntarily and without 
informing him arranged a regular system of accounts, 
and shall never forget his surprise and appreciation 
when, at the end of the year, I showed him what he 
had earned and the sources and also the amounts still 
due him. 

The most important branch of his practice was the 
searching of titles, and this gave me my early taste for 
real estate. This department was under the able manage- 

18 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 19 

ment of Alfred Mclntire, who graciously initiated me 
into the intricacies of his work. 

We were then in the midst of a real-estate hoom mostly 
participated in by the recently created middle class. 
Houses were dealt in almost as freely as merchandise, the 
only hindrance being the delay occasioned by the searching 
of titles, which was still confined to the lawyers, as there 
were no title insurance companies. Contracts would 
frequently be assigned twice and sometimes thrice, before 
the great event, "the closing of the title." Then the 
various couples involved — the seller, the assignors of the 
contract, and the final purchaser — would all troop into our 
offices. The women invariably were the bankers and 
pulled out their roll of bills and sometimes Savings Bank 
Books, rarely checks, to consummate the transaction. 
The moneys invested were seldom taken out of the busi- 
ness, but were mostly the savings of the thrifty house- 
wives. When everything was completed, all adjourned 
to a neighbouring wine cellar, to be treated to a bottle or 
two of Rhine wine by the vendor, and frequently I had to 
go along to represent Kurzman, and as the youngest hsten 
attentively to the real estate stories told with all kinds of 
embellishments. 

Kurzman at that time took as his partner George H. 
Yeaman, who had been a member of Congress from Ken- 
tucky and, more recently, American Minister to Denmark, 
and subsequently became a lecturer at the Columbia Law 
School. His native Southern chivalry had been pohshed 
by his experience at the Danish court; he was a man of 
splendid education and wide culture. I was fortunate in 
being chosen to take his dictation. I was amused in 1916 
when, as Ambassador, I visited Dr. Maurice Francis 
Egan at our Legation in Copenhagen, and looked through 
the records made by Yeaman in 1865 while he was the 
head of that Leo^ation. 



20 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

INIy private life I continued to order along the lines that 
I had laid down for myself. I would get up at 6 a. m. 
and go to Central Park. Then if I had not exercised at 
home, I would take a long walk; otherwise I would sit 
under the trees and read. The hour that the horse car 
consumed in wending its way from the Park to Duane 
Street I would devote to my books, and I was so thrifty 
that I did not even buy a newspaper. I kept myself so 
busy that I did not even see one, until, going home for the 
night, I unfolded and read such as had been left in Kurz- 
man's office during the day. 

Thrift was, indeed, a necessary virtue. I had left com- 
merce for the law at something of a sacrifice: in 1872, my 
accounts, which I kept scrupulously all this while, bear 
evidence of how careful I had to be of my scanty income. 
"Carfare, 10 cts. ; Dinner, 15 cts. ; Sundries, 2 cts." That 
is a typical day's expenditure. 

No man that lived through the Panic of '73 can ever 
forget it and on me it made an indelible impression. At 
the root of the trouble was railway over-expansion. The 
successful completion of the Union Pacific in 1869 caused 
the projection of many other roads. Jay Cooke launched 
the Northern Pacific ; Fisk and Hatch, the Chesapeake & 
Ohio; Kenyon, Cox & Co., the Canadian Southern. The 
eminent New York banking concerns floated the bonds ;the 
large rate of interest promised — N. P. paid 8% per cent. 
— attracted buyers, largely clergymen, school-teachers and 
small professional men — and prices advanced until opti- 
mism bordered on hysteria. Issue followed issue. Then, 
in the May of '73, a panic on the Vienna Bourse stopped 
European consumption and threw back on the New York 
financiers obligations that strained their credit. Early in 
September, after one unfortunate bank-statement fol- 
lowed on the heels of another, call-money was at 7 J/g and 
commercial paper at from nine to twelve per cent. 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 21 

Minor failures were numerous in the week of Septem- 
ber 8th. Kenyon, Cox & Co. failed on the 13th; tlic 
Eclectic Life Insurance Co. on the 17th. On the 18th, 
the big bolt fell; word ran round that Jay Cooke & Co., in 
many respects the greatest house of its time, was totter- 
ing. This news greatly startled Kurzman, who had been 
a persistent purchaser of Northern Pacific bonds. "On 
the floor of the Exchange," said the Times, "the brokers 
surged out, tumbling pell-mell over each other in the gen- 
eral confusion, and reached their offices in race-horse 
time." Those were not the days of telephones; when the 
panic-stricken men had got their orders, they ran back 
to the floor, on which absolute confusion reigned. Men 
shouted themselves hoarse, contradicted themselves and 
collapsed. A moment was enough to ruin many a dealer. 
Any one with money to lend was beset by a mob of luna- 
tics. Almost immediately the effect was felt all the way 
down the financial line; smaller companies went the way 
of the big ones and many of the smallest were tottering 
after the smaller. 

That week I took as usual all that I could spare from 
my scant salary and went, according to my custom, to the 
German LTptown Savings Bank to deposit it along with 
the little fund that I was laboriously setting aside. There 
was a big fine of confident depositors bent on similar er- 
rands; many were ahead of me, and waiting my turn, as 
I looked into the teller's cage, I saw the president of the 
bank in a very earnest conversation with three other men. 
Of course, I could not hear what they were saying, but I 
thought the president seemed worried, and that those with 
him also showed uneasiness. 

I turned my head to find that the shuffling line had 
brought me before the window that was my goal. The 
clerk behind it was both a receiving and a paying teller. 
On a sudden impulse I thrust my doUar bill that I in- 



22 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

tended to deposit back into my pocket, presented my pass- 
book, and told the clerk that I wanted to withdraw the 
entire $80 that was to my credit. 

Three days later that bank closed. The other depos- 
itors ultimately got about fifty cents on the dollar. 

The real estate market had been as badly inflated as the 
stock market, and foreclosures were the order of the day. 
Properties like the block bounded by Park and Madison 
Avenue and Seventy-first and Seventy-second streets 
went under the hammer. John D. Crimmins and his 
father had paid $475,000 to James Lenox, who repur- 
chased it for $374,150 at the foreclosure sale under the 
mortgage. Equities disappeared like the snow in spring- 
time. Where we had once been almost rushed to death 
with the drawing of mortgages to consummate the many 
sales, we were now hard pressed to keep pace with fore- 
closure proceedings. 

I took charge of this work for Kurzman, who gave me 
10 per cent, of the net fees; the commission was most ac- 
ceptable, the experience invaluable, but a more depressing 
task it has never been my lot to perform. The proud and 
prosperous men that had been our best clients from 1871 
to 1873 now returned to shed their wealth and, with it, 
their self-reliance. One who had owned eight or ten 
houses was reduced to borrowing $100 from Kurzman 
for temporary reHef. I made up my mind never to 
"plunge"; if I had not lived through the Panic of '73, 
I should to-day be either many times richer than I am or, 
what is far more likely, penniless. 

The bad hght in the Kurzman offices had injured my 
eyes, and, just after the panic had subsided, my doctor 
ordered a sea trip. I sailed on the barque Dora for Ham- 
burg — thirty days for $35, and no extra charge for the 
excitement that was thrown in. 

We were undermanned and underprovisioned. The 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 23 

first mate was ill when we set out from Jersey Flats ; be- 
cause of that, two of the crew had deserted, leaving only- 
eight men aboard. There was no doctor among these, 
and the Captain and I read a thumbed work on medicine 
that adorned his cabin, studied the remedies that it sug- 
gested, and nearly emptied the medicine chest in trying to 
cure the poor fellow, who lost sixty pounds under our 
ministrations and, at the voyage's end, went home with 
his disease still undiagnosed. 

Meanwhile, the crew were dissatisfied on account of the 
extra work forced on them by the inactivity of the mate 
and the absence of the deserters, and also with their rations. 
They won the second mate to their side, and, on a day of 
storm when they declared themselves too few to handle 
the sails, he led something like an old-fashioned mutiny. 
They crowded toward the Captain. 

"Run and get a pistol!" he whispered to me. 

I obeyed. As I returned and slipped him the weapon, 
the mutineers were just coming to a pause before him. 

The Captain levelled his pistol. He made short work 
of the difficulty. He offered them cold lead or hot grog. 
The crew, hke sensible men, chose the latter, but they con- 
tinued to grumble at the food — which was mostly hard- 
tack and cornmeal — until, on a day when we were be- 
calmed in the North Sea, we caught several dolphins 
weighing over 150 pounds. I have rarely eaten anything 
better than that dolphin steak. 

This is not to be a record of travel, but one phase of 
that early journey of mine is well worthy of notice: I 
saw Germany just as she was entering on the imperial- 
istic career that ended so abruptly when her crestfallen 
representatives signed the Treaty of Versailles. The 
Franco-Prussian War had just ended in triumph; the 
German Empire had been reborn. Its people were not 
the easygoing people that I remembered from my earlier 



24 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

boyhood in Mannheim. Everywhere there were the be- 
ginnings of commercial and mihtary activity; everywhere 
there was preached the doctrine of world power. 

I passed several weeks at Kiel ; I hved well on less than 
a dollar a day. I had some difficulty in becoming friendly 
with a pensioned wounded army captain because he held 
me personally responsible that American ammunition had 
been sold to the French. The same complaint was made 
to me by the German Ambassador, Baron Wangenheim, 
in Constantinople, in 1915. I saw the launching of the 
new Empire's first battleship, the very beginning of that 
colossal preparation for war which, at the cost of so many 
milhons in lives and money, was finally to bear its bloody 
fruit in 1914. A wrinkled old man wearing a small mili- 
tary cap made the speech on that occasion. It was the 
famous General von INIoltke. I listened intently to what he 
said. His words reached everyone in that crowd, which 
was attentively listening to the great hero of the Franco- 
Prussian War ; and when I looked into his piercing eyes, I 
found that they seemed to penetrate right through me, 
and I could understand the frequently made statement 
that officers used to quiver in his presence, and that his 
questions, accompanied by one of his fixed looks, always 
elicited the exact truth. 

On my return to America, I entered the law office of 
Chauncey Shaffer, who was a leader of the New York Bar 
and had a nation-wide reputation. He had been retained 
in many important cases, and some romantic. His offices 
were first on the third floor in an old-fashioned private 
house at No. 7 Murray Street, and later, he moved into 
the Bennett Building, one of the city's first modern office 
buildings. 

In our new, well-lighted quarters, we had some interest- 
ing neighbours, and these, along with many another, were 
constantly dropping in on Shaffer. I still recall with 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 25 

pleasure my acquaintance in those surroundings with Gil- 
dersleeve and Purroy, with Butzel and Bourke Cochran. 

Henry A. Gildersleeve had been born on a farm in 
Dutchess County, and in early life was the handiest man 
with his fists in all that district. In the Civil War he 
organized a company and was elected a captain. He re- 
turned from that to complete his education and become a 
lawyer, but he became a crack shot, too, at the interna- 
tional rifle matches; and when he first visited Shaffer's 
office, it was as an Apollo of a man with romance in every 
feature of his face and every particle of attire. 

He was offered by both parties the nomination as Judge 
of General Sessions and came to consult Shaffer about it. 
I was in the room at the time. 

The scene is still vivid. Shaffer never forgot his 
Napoleonic pose when there was anybody present to ob- 
serve it, and now he moved about with one hand under his 
coat tails and the other thrust into his breast. The harder 
he thought, the harder he chewed his tobacco and the more 
frequent were his expectorations. Finally he stopped 
short in front of Gildersleeve, who had been waiting pa- 
tiently for this queer oracle to speak. 

"If you have to go down in this fight," Shaffer said, 
"go down in good company: take the Fusion nomination." 

Gildersleeve accepted that advice. He remained on the 
bench until he was seventy years of age. He is in his 
eighties now and as keen of intellect as in those far-off 
days when he used to visit Shaffer. He is still one of my 
favourite golf companions. 

On many Saturdays we did little work ; the coterie met 
in Shaffer's office, and we talked ; it would be nearer to the 
mark to say that one of us talked and entertained the 
others by his endless flow of good stories and sparkling 
reminiscences. He was a student under Shaffer, and his 
name was Bourke Cochran. I never saw him poring 



26 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

over Blackstone or Kent, but on Saturday when freed 
from his duties as principal of the Pubhc School at Tucka- 
hoe, this exuberant young instructor would either practise 
his future orations on us or pour out his flood of Cochran- 
isms and anecdotes. Not getting my name at the first 
meeting, he dubbed me "Mortgagee" and still calls me 
so. He thrilled us with the account of his early struggles 
at Dublin University, roused our enthusiasm by his plans 
to restore oratory to the New York Bar, and evoked our 
applause by his determination to Patrick Henryize the 
Assembly at Albany. The Democrats promised him a 
nomination to the Assembly, but withdrew the promise 
when they discovered that he was not yet twenty-one. 

It was while at Shaffer's that I began to find out how 
human great men really are. The names of Benjamin 
F. Butler — the redoubtable Butler of Massachusetts — 
and Preston Plumb of Kansas used to move me to awe. 
One of my employer's important cases involved some 
grants of land to the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe 
Railroad and was brought by John Leisenring, of Penn- 
sylvania, whose attorney-of-record, Congressman-at- 
large Charles P. Albright, of the same state, had, in addi- 
tion to Shaffer, associated with him in the affair, Butler 
and Plumb. The latter used to dash into our office with- 
out a necktie and then chafe at the former's unpunctuality 
and indifference in the matter of keeping appointments. 

"It's all very well for Butler to behave like this just 
now," he would say. "Wait a few more years. Then he 
will still be a mere Congressman, while I'll be a United 
States Senator! We'll see who'll kowtow to the other 

then!" 

Although Plumb was elected to the Senate not long 
after and served there many years, I did not hear of Ben 
Butler doing any kowtowing. 

In the summer of 1875 I felt that obtaining a knowl- 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 27 

edge of the law in this scrappy, unsystematic fashion was 
unsatisfactory, and that, therefore, I would leave Shaf- 
fer's employ, attend Columbia Law School to get a thor- 
ough grounding of the law, and arrange for future easy 
access the odd bits of legal knowledge that I had absorbed 
in the offices. As I needed an income to enable me to do 
this, I secured a position as night-school teacher at $15 a 
week in the school on Forty-second Street near Third 
Avenue. 

At that time Forty-third Street had not yet been cut 
through, and on top of the rocks was a shanty-town occu- 
pied by squatters. As I had the adult class, my pupils 
were from eighteen to forty-five years old, some of them 
denizens of the rocks, while others were hardworking car- 
penters, brakemen, butchers, factory workers, a plumber's 
assistant, a coachman, and a blacksmith. 

I particularly remember the latter three, because the 
plumber's assistant came to the school to inveigle some of 
the other boys to play cards with him in one of the rear 
seats, and to amuse himself by throwing tobacco quids and 
beans while I, with my back turned to the class, would 
be engaged in explaining things on the blackboard. I 
was nineteen years of age, husky, weighing 180 pounds, 
and unafraid even of a plumber's boy. As my weekly sti- 
pend of $15 was my sole support and its retention de- 
pended upon my being able to maintain discipline and 
keep up the attendance, I was not going to permit this 
loafer's antics to defeat me — and one evening when I 
caught him playing cards, I forcibly ejected him from the 
classroom. Thenceforth my tenure of office was assured 
and continued to the closing day exercises, at which I had 
the pleasure of rewarding the coachman, Morgan O'Toole, 
with a prize for the greatest advancement made by any 
pupil. This man was very anxious to learn fractions. 
During the first three weeks of the session, every Friday 



28 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

evening I had succeeded in teaching them to him. Every 
following Monday evening his mind was an absolute blank 
as to fractions, and the fourth week I asked him to come 
to my house both Saturday and Sunday, and gave him pri- 
vate lessons. His joy on the next INIonday when he found 
he had retained his knowledge is still a vivid memory in 
my mind. 

The blacksmith, a man named Whitney, had been a 
fellow pupil of mine in Fifty-first Street School, and had 
been one of the best penmen. I was surprised to see him 
come to reacquire that ability, which he had lost through 
wielding the hammer and pulling the bellows. 

One of the carpenters wanted to learn duodecimals. 
As I knew nothing about them, I told him that I wanted 
him to brush up on ordinary fractions for two days. In 
the meantime, I learned duodecimals and then taught 
him. 

It was really a great experience to divide impartially 
two hours every evening so as to satisfy the twenty-five 
earnest seekers after knowledge. 

I deeply sympathized with these men who, wearied from 
their day's labour, preferred to forego needed rest or 
amusement and devote their evenings to extricate them- 
selves from the ignorance in which they had been com- 
pelled, probably through poverty and the early need of 
self-support, to live the better part of their existence. 

It spurred me to still greater efforts to increase my own 
knowledge and I was no longer content merely to perform 
my allotted tasks at the Law School, but spent several 
hours a day at the Astor Library and drew deep drafts 
from that fine well. 

During that period I devoted all the daylight hours to 
study, principally at the Law School, sitting in the midst 
of these hundreds of men who had come from all parts of 
this country and Japan, to imbibe from the lips of this 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 29 

great teacher, Professor Theodore W. Dwight, the basis 
of the law of the land. 

I joined the Columbia Club and was elected one of the 
team to debate with the Barnard Club, all of whose mem- 
bers were college graduates, while we had not had that 
advantage. I studied the subject of the debate, "Whether 
Participation in Profits or Agency Is the Correct Test of 
Partnership," more thoroughly than I ever did any case 
on which I was retained during my practice of law. Pro- 
fessor Dwight, who presided, praised our thorough prepa- 
ration and fine team work and declared us the winners. 
When our class graduated, we had the great honour of 
having that famous leader of the Bar, Charles O'Connor, 
come out of his retirement to bid us "Godspeed" on our 
way. 

I was formally admitted to the bar on June 1, 1877. 

During my second year in Law School I did not teach 
night school, but supported myself by accepting a position 
from that fine Southern gentleman, General Roger A. 
Pryor, who had been Congressman, Minister to Spain, 
and finally became a Judge of the Supreme Court of the 
State of New York. 

An interesting episode that occurred at that time was 
my representing General Pryor at several meetings of the 
owners of the Greenwich Street property, who had re- 
tained him to seek an injunction to prevent the continued 
use and extension of the first Elevated road, which was on 
their street and was propelled by a chain. They claimed 
that their property would be ruined for private residences, 
and it was. They did not visualize, however, that this 
was the first step forward in the solution of the transit 
problem of New York, which was then totally dependent 
upon its horse-car system ; and that someone had to suffer 
for the general good. 

A very important and valuable after-effect of my con- 



30 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

nection with Pryor's office was my becoming acquainted 
with Mr. Valentine Loewi, for whom I searched the title 
in a mortgage transaction. Loewi doubted my experi- 
ence and when Pryor confronted me with this, instead of 
resenting the criticism, as Loewi expected me to do, I 
recognized its justice, and satisfied Loewi by having my 
work checked up by Mr. Mclntire. He became my per- 
manent friend and one of my firm's first clients, and 
through his recommendations we secured some of the most 
valuable clients we ever had. 

A little later came the uproar consequent upon Tilton's 
entering the wrong berth in a sleeping-car. He came to 
Pryor, and I acted as secretary while these two prepared 
the Tilton statement for the newspapers. Curiously, 
both these six-footers had the habit, when thinking in- 
tensely, of striding across the room with swinging arms, 
and were that day doing it in opposite directions. I was 
constantly on the alert for a collision. Tilton would dictate 
a phrase. Pryor would stop and suggest another word. 
Tilton would weigh and test it, and would make still fur- 
ther corrections. Not even my weightiest diplomatic 
notes from Constantinople received the care and attention 
that these few hues were given by these two masters of 
English. 

In the summer of '77, as Mr. Kurzman was going to 
Europe, he requested me to come back to Kurzman & 
Yeaman, and as they offered me a well-lighted office, I 
did so. Still associated with Kurzman was Alfred 
Mclntire to whom I have already referred, and with 
whom I had kept up the pleasantest of relations during 
my clerkships with Shaffer and Pryor, both of which posi- 
tions he had secured for me. Mclntire was a New Eng- 
lander of the very best type, considerably older than Mr. 
Kurzman, and recognized as one of the best conveyancers 
of the City of New York. 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 31 

One Sunday while I was visiting Mclntire, we went 
rowing on the Harlem River, and discussed plans for a 
prospective partnership. He was about six foot two in 
height, and weighed fully 250 pounds, and I was to do the 
rowing. Our skiff had not proceeded fifty yards before 
I discovered that I could not pull such a load and get any- 
where. I took this as an omen, and then and there re- 
solved that when I did select a law partner, he should be 
of my own age and weight, so that he could do some of the 
pulling. 

During this summer, one of the old clients of the office, 
Henry Behning, got into very serious differences with his 
partner Diehl. The matter became greatly complicated, 
and the more complicated it became, the more excited 
Behning grew, and the more excited he was, the more in- 
coherent and less comprehensible was his English, so that 
Mr. Yeaman, who was acting as his counsel in Mr. Kurz- 
man's absence, despaired of understanding him. A cli- 
max was reached one day when Diehl's attorneys had 
secured the appointment of a receiver. Behning was 
accusing the lawyers, and the judge, and everybody else 
of all kinds of conspiracies, and Yeaman was so bewil- 
dered that he called me in to tell Behning that he did not 
think he could do justice to him because he could not un- 
derstand his speech, and that he had better secure a Ger- 
man-speaking attorney. Upon my explaining this to 
Behning, he said: "All right, I'll take you." I explained 
the proposition to Mr. Yeaman, and he said that if Behn- 
ing would be contented to do all his consulting with me 
he would be very glad to steer the legal proceedings. I 
discovered that some of Behning's fears of conspiracy 
were justified, and concluded that the only way to coun- 
teract them was to throw the firm into bankruptcy. I 
prepared the necessary papers, and had them signed by 
the judge of the United States District Court. I then 



32 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

communicated with the pompous ex- judge who repre- 
sented Diehl, and had the tremendous satisfaction of hav- 
ing completely checkmated him. A prompt settlement 
resulted. The creditors reahzed that if they kept on 
fighting, the lawyers would be dividing the assets, and 
therefore consented to have Behning and Diehl divide 
them, and each continue in business for himself, and each 
assume half the liabilities. 

Behning greatly appreciated what I had accomplished. 
He wanted to give me something to prove it. As he had 
no spare cash, he offered, and with Yeaman's consent 1 
accepted, one share of the Celluloid Piano Key Company 
stock. At that time, Arnold, Cheney & Company had 
cornered the word's ivory market, driving up the price of 
ivory for piano keys to $30.00 a set. The piano manufac- 
turers tried alabaster and other substitutes with small 
success, when Behning thought of using celluloid and 
formed the Celluloid Piano Key Company, securing for 
it the exclusive right for the use of that substance in piano 
and organ keys. 

The company was so successful that its president 
began to intrigue for its control. The president was an 
Englishman, the treasurer a Dane, the secretary an 
American, and most of the rest Germans. Themselves 
densely ignorant of the manipulations of corporations, 
they finally feared that the president was in a fair 
way to get the company away from them, whereupon 
those representing over 70 per cent, of the stock held a 
hurried meeting, but they could not agree on a common 
pohcy because each mistrusted the others. I proposed that 
they all give their proxies to one man who should obligate 
himself faithfully to represent the interests of all against 
the president; they replied that this was excellent, but 
they could not agree on the one man. 

Then Behning spoke: 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 33 

"What's the use of fencing any longer? The only one 
we all trust is Henry. Let's give him all our proxies." 

They did so, slated me for secretary, and as I wanted to 
prevent any mischief until the next annual meeting, I 
called on the president, told him I had the proxies of 70 
per cent, and, with the audacity of my years, warned him 
that, if he did anything improper for the remainder of his 
term, I would bring him into court. 

He asked me: 

"Are you going to be an officer?" 

"I am to be secretary," I said. 

"Will you protect my interest, and see that I get my 
proportionate share of the profits?" 

I went back to the others and obtained the authority to 
give him this assurance, which I did. 

"All right," he declared, "make out my proxy to you 
and I'll sign it." 

I had bearded a lion in his den and brought a lamb out 
with me. INIy connection with this concern, in one ca- 
pacity or another, continued through two decades, and I 
was its president when I left it. 

This adventure in celluloid put me in a position where it 
was possible to realize my ambition to stop clerking and 
start for myself. 

It was settled most unexpectedly. During my attend- 
ance at Law School, Abraham Goldsmith, Wilbur Larre- 
more, son of Judge Larremore, and I used to hold weekly 
quizzes at my house. In that way I had renewed my 
friendship with Goldsmith, who had been my classmate in 
the City College. One evening, early in December, 1878, 
Goldsmith called and informed me that Samson Lachman 
and he contemplated starting a law firm. I had always 
been very fond of Goldsmith, and Samson Lachman had 
won my unlimited admiration when I listened to his Com- 
mencement Day oration and saw him receive eleven prizes. 



34 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

which were about all that one man could take. Hence, 
Goldsmith found me very receptive, and before we sepa- 
rated that evening, our partnership was an accomplished 
fact. We both agreed that Lachman was entitled to 
head the firm. As Goldsmith expressed indifference as 
to his position, and as Lachman, Morgenthau & Gold- 
smith sounded more euphonious, that order was adopted. 
We agreed to start on January 1, 1879. Our average 
ages were twenty-three. We hired offices at No. 243 
Broadway at an annual rental of $400. Our net receipts 
for the year 1879 were $1,500. 

Our practice, as well as our income, grew steadily, but 
I shall abstain from relating many details, as most of the 
matters involved were not of public interest. 

A rather interesting affair, because some of the partici- 
pants are well known to the public, was the dissolution in 
February, 1893, of the firm of Wechsler & Abraham, of 
Brooklyn. We represented Wechsler, and William J. 
Gaynor, afterward Mayor of the City of New York, 
represented Abraham. Their partnership agreement 
contained a very peculiar dissolution clause. They were 
to meet on February 1, 1893, and bid for the business, 
and a bid was to be final only if the non-bidding partner 
had failed to increase it during a term of twenty-four 
hours. When we met, I drew attention to the fact that 
if we acted under the contract, either side could prolong 
the matter indefinitely, and recommended that we amend 
the agreement by reducing the limit to one hour. This 
was agreed to on condition that both parties would 
deposit $500,000 as an earnest of their intentions to 
complete their bid, the unsuccessful bidder to have 
his check returned to him. Isidor Straus pulled out a 
certified check of $500,000 and I instructed Wechsler to 
make out his check. When Wechsler admitted that he 
did not have that much in the bank, I showed them an 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 35 

underwriting that I had secured from the Guaranty Trust 
Company and the Title Guarantee & Trust Company, to 
finance our purchase to the extent of $1,000,000. The 
auction then proceeded, and both factions were cautiously 
watching each other. Gaynor, Abraham, and the 
Strauses several times retired to the other end of the room 
for conference, Nathan Straus constantly pulling at one 
of his big cigars and pretending that they had about 
reached the limit of their bidding. I had arranged defi- 
nitely with Wechsler that we would bid an amount that 
would produce $500,000 for the good will of the business. 
So, finally, when they came within reach of about $100,000 
of it, I bid the exact amount that would produce the de- 
sired result. They saw what I meant, and, as it turned 
out, had their last conference, which lasted about ten min- 
utes, and raised us $100. I then informed them that we 
would take our hour. We (Wechsler, Mr. MacNulty, 
who was the manager of the store, and myself) went to 
an adjoining restaurant to discuss the matter. Wechsler 
devoted fully forty minutes of the hour in trying to per- 
suade me to reduce the fee that he had agreed to pay me. 
He and I had agreed that if he purchased the property, 
and we had to complete the financing of it, my firm's fee 
was to be $25,000, while if Abraham bought him out, we 
were to receive $10,000. Wechsler thought we had earned 
it too quickly, and begged for a reduction. I was abso- 
lutely firm and finally told him the story of the dentist 
who, with his modern methods, had painlessly extracted 
two teeth for a farmer in two minutes, and when he de- 
manded his fee of $2.50, the exorbitancy of the charge was 
objected to by the farmer, who stated that when he had his 
last tooth extracted, the dentist had pulled him around 
the room for half an hour, and then only charged him 50 
cents for all that work. I said to Wechsler that I could 
have protracted this matter for thirty days, and this delay 



36 ALL IX A LIFE-TIME 

would have been most injurious to him on account of his 
diabetic condition. He wanted me to bid another $10,000 
so that Abraham would have had to pay the fee, and he 
would have a net $250,000 for his good will. I was 
firm in my advice that he was unwise to run the business 
alone and should not risk securing it. We returned be- 
fore the hour had expired, got Wechsler's check back, and 
his half interest in the business became the property of 
Isidor and Xathan Straus, for whom Abraham had in 
reality been bidding. Immediately thereafter they 
dropped Wechsler's name and created the well-known 
firm of Abraham & Straus. 

Incidentally it may be of interest to the public to know 
that, when Isidor and Xathan Straus divided their inter- 
ests, Isidor and his sons secured the business of R. H. 
INIacv & Co., which thev o^Tied in conmion, while X^athan 
and his sons secured the half interest in Abraham k Straus. 
X^o doubt a good share of Xathan Straus' munificent chari- 
ties are financed to-day by his share of the profits from 
that business. 

One of the greatest surprises in our practice was when 
Judore Horace Russell retained me as a business law^-er 
to advise him what to do about the affairs of Hilton, 
Hughes & Company, who had succeeded to the business of 
A. T. Stewart & Company, and who, in turn, were later 
succeeded by John Wanamaker. Judge Russell's broth- 
er-in-law, Mr. Hilton, had been increasing the volume 
of the business rapidly, but his expense ratio was in- 
creasing much faster in proportion, so that, at the end of 
the year, he showed a tremendous loss. Some of the big- 
gest banks in Xew York were refusing to renew the notes, 
even though Judge Hilton was willing to endorse them. 
They said they felt safe on all the paper they had then 
with Judge Hilton's endorsement and collateral, but they 
feared that if they permitted the losses to continue much 



APPRENTICED TO THE LAW 37 

longer, it might even engulf Judge Hilton in the unavoid- 
able catastrophe. I finally advised him that he should 
sell out the business and take his loss. He retained Mr. 
Elihu Root as counsel. The three of us went over the 
whole situation. I explained that, owing to the very large 
general expenses due primarily to the excessive salaries 
which Hilton had agreed to pay under five-year contracts 
to his buyers, heads of departments, and even the superin- 
tendent of the engine room, and the bad credit in which 
the firm then stood, the only wise course was to sell out the 
business. We concluded to do so, but in the meantime 
decided that it would be necessary to make a general as- 
signment to preserve the assets and secure a reasonable 
settlement with the men who held long contracts. When 
the assignment was finally prepared, it had to be executed 
the following day, and Root, Russell, and I first dined to- 
gether, and then remained in Russell's office until five min- 
utes past midnight, when young Hilton, in our presence 
and that of Mr. Wright, the assignee, and a notary, exe- 
cuted the document. 

While waiting, Mr. Root told us of several cases in 
which he had recently been retained, where the younger 
generation dissipated big fortunes in a very short time. 
He laid particular stress on the case of Cyrus W. Field, 
who, in his lifetime, prided himself that he had an income 
of $1,000 a day, which at that time was enormous. I also 
recall Root teUing me that night that it was unwise for 
any lawyer to devote himself entirely to politics, that he 
should, when called upon, render a public service, com- 
plete it, and then return to his profession, but be ready 
for any further calls that might be made upon him. Root 
has pursued that course most successfully. 

I felt a strange sensation to be present at this midnight 
denouement of the great business of A. T. Stewart & 
Company. I could not help but think of the causes. 



38 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Judge Hilton had offended the Jews in America because 
his hotel, the "Grand Union" in Saratoga, had refused to 
accommodate Joseph Seligman, whom both the New York 
Chamber of Commerce and Union League Club honoured 
by electing as one of their vice-presidents. Hilton did 
not then realize that this act not alone involved the loss 
of his Jewish customers, but it would also influence a great 
many of his Christian patrons who would resent such dis- 
crimination, and withdraw their custom from his firm. 
Most of this trade went to the rising firms of B. Alt- 
man & Co. and Stern Bros, and so strengthened them 
that they became great competitors of Hilton, Hughes & 
Company, and precipitated their downfall. John Wana- 
maker bought the lease and stock of goods. I remember 
distinctly with what satisfaction, when the transaction 
was closed, he told me that this was the first time that he 
had ever heard of so valuable a franchise being given away 
for nothing. Wanamaker shrewdly disregarded the short 
existence of Hilton, Hughes & Company, and advertised 
John Wanamaker as the successor of A. T. Stewart & 
Company. 



CHAPTER IV 

REAL ESTATE 

MY FIRST purchase of real estate was No. 32 
West Thirty-fifth Street, a twenty-two-foot, 
white marble, high-stoop building. I bought 
it for the modest sum of $15,000 and resold it at an advance 
of $500, and thought I was doing well. To-day it is worth 
at least $110,000. This, however, was not my first 
experience with real estate, for that was in 1872 when, 
at the request of my preceptor, Mr. Ferdinand Kurz- 
man, I undertook for an extra compensation of $5 a 
month to collect for him the rents of No. 218 Chrystie 
Street. 

The tenants of this building in 1872 were Irish and Ger- 
mans, and one of the stores was occupied as a saloon by an 
Irishman named Ryan who catered to the worst element 
of the neighbourhood. Kurzman, failing to get rid of him 
in a peaceful way, and knowing that there was a political 
feud between him and Anthony Hartman, the odd though 
popular Justice of the District Court, waited for the first 
of May, when only a three-hours' dispossess notice was re- 
quired. Circumstances favoured the plan because on that 
day the Thomas Ryan Association were giving a picnic. 
So the notice was served by nailing it on the door at twelve 
o'clock. Judge Hartman opened court at three o'clock, 
called the cases of Kurzman vs. Ryan, took Ryan's default, 
signed the dispossess warrant, and adjourned the court, 
compelling all other litigants to wait for their justice until 
the next day. Instead of the usual one marshal, all those 
attached to the court, with their assistants, were hurried 

39 



40 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

to No. 218 Chrystie Street, and within two hours had re- 
moved everything to the sidewalk. 

By that time word had reached Ryan, and he and some 
of his henchmen returned. They were thoroughly aroused 
but quite helpless. As there was no court in session, and the 
marshals were in possession of the premises, Kurzman was 
rid of Ryan for good and all. This was the first exhibition 
I ever saw of how justice might be travestied. 

The next day Ryan's attorneys appeared before Hart- 
man and attempted to have the proceedings reopened, 
and upon Hartman's refusal to do so, attacked him bit- 
terly. The Judge said that if the learned counsel would 
not at once stop his impudent remarks, the court would 
forget its dignity long enough to leave the bench and 
"punch him in the jaw." 

My next experience brought me in contact with even a 
worse element. Kurzman had foreclosed a second mort- 
gage on some houses on West Thirty-ninth Street between 
Tenth and Eleventh avenues. They were part of the 
block that was called "Hell's Kitchen." Many of the ten- 
ants owned only a mattress and a few chairs, and no 
kitchen utensils of any kind, and frequently paid their 
rents in instalments of less than one dollar. Twice I saw 
women carried out of the buildings the worse for the "ex- 
citing arguments" they had indulged in with some of their 
visitors. It would not have paid us to dispossess these 
people, as the new ones would have been no better. We 
collected the rents for a few months longer until the first 
mortgages were foreclosed. 

This condition was very general throughout the City of 
New York. The boom days of real estate had disap- 
peared, and with them, the optimistic speculators. Real 
estate was unsalable, and those who had received mort- 
gages in payment of some of their capital and all their 
profits were confronted with the choice of either abandon- 



REAL ESTATE 41 

ing their mortgages or foreclosing them and again assum- 
ing control of their property. The conferences between the 
delinquent owners and the mortgagees to adjust these 
matters reminded one as much of funerals as the joyous 
meetings in the wine cellars had of weddings. These 
middle-class investors whom I met in '72 and '73 were 
completely wiped out and never came back. Quite the 
contrary was the case with most of those intrepid builders 
and operators hke John D. Crimmins and Terrence 
Farley, who forgot their losses and went at it again with 
fresh vigour and new courage as soon as the liquidation 
had ended. In 1879, when specie payment had been re- 
sumed, the superintendents of both the insurance and 
bank departments urged institutions under their super- 
vision to market their real estate as soon as possible. Their 
efforts and those of other recent plaintiffs to dispose of 
their holdings started a new active period. Real estate 
again became fashionable, and the plucky operators and 
builders who had survived the drastic punishment they 
had received were soon reinforced by a new set of men, of 
whom I was one. _ 

In 1880, 1 turned my attention to Harlem where nearly 
all the brownstone and brick houses that had been built in 
the seventies were in the hands of mortgagees, and where 
the owners of the old frame houses were thoroughly dis- | 
couraged and could see little hope in the future. Nearly 
all of Harlem was for sale. I bought plots of three to 
five adjoining houses at a time, and quickly resold them 
at small profits. This activity stopped when President 
Garfield was shot. The suspense during his illness caused 
a complete cessation, so I, too, rested until October, 1885. I 
I was then worth only $27,000, and as a large part 
of that was represented by my interest in the Cel- \ 
luloid Piano Key Company, I had but little working 
capital. "'"""'^ 



42 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

My brother-in-law, William J. Ehrich, agreed to oper- 
ate with me in real estate, he to contribute $40,000 capital 
and I to do the work. All profits, after paying him inter- 
est, were to be divided equally. 

At that time my mother lived on One Hundred and 
Twenty-sixth Street in a house I had purchased, a 17-foot 
brown-stone house with a pleasant yard which she person- 
ally transformed into a delightful little garden. In my 
frequent visits there I became impressed with the prospec- 
tive importance of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. 
It was the first broad street north of Forty-second that 
ran from river to river, and I foresaw its future value, 
particularly of the block between Seventh and Eighth 
avenues. It seemed to me like the neck of a funnel into 
which the entire neighbouring population was daily poured 
to reach the Elevated station at One Hundred and 
Twenty-fifth Street and Eighth Avenue. 

Ehrich and I concluded to secure some property on 
this block. The first that we obtained was the lease of 
seven lots for which, at the beginning, we paid the annual 
rental of $4,000. We still own this leasehold, and the 
gross rental now is $44,500. We subsequently purchased 
the adjoining plot of five lots, improved the same, and 
were delighted when we were enabled to sell it to the 
Knickerbocker Real Estate Company among whose 
stockholders were Solomon Loeb, of Kuhn, Loeb & Com- 
pany; Henry O. Havemeyer, John D. Crimmins, and 
John E. Parsons, at a price which netted us a profit of 
$100,000. This was in 1899. Subsequently, I re- 
purchased this plot jointly with my partners, Lachman & 
Goldsmith, for $250,000, and within two years thereafter 
sold it to Mr. Louis M. Blumstein for $425,000. This 
was the most profitable, but not the only transaction we 
had on this street. With various associates I owned, at 
one time or another, one half of the property on the south 



REAL ESTATE 43 

side of that block, so that I made good use of my early 
judgment as to its future value. 

Our operations on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth 
Street were not confined to that block alone. We had 
also purchased various plots between Fifth and Sixth 
avenues and, with a friend, I had collected a plot of eight 
lots between Lexington and Fourth avenues. This made 
Oscar Hammerstein one of my customers. 

One day the optimistic Oscar came into my ofRce with 
his serious, flat-footed walk, his French silk hat on his head, 
and his eternal cigar between his fingers. He had just 
completed the Harlem Opera House on West One Hun- 
dred and Twenty-fifth Street, and he told me that, for his 
success there, it was essential to have also a theatre on the 
East Side, and he negotiated for the eight lots that we had 
collected on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street near 
Park Avenue. We spent several hours arranging the 
details of the lease of our property, with privilege to buy, 
which was what he wanted. He argued me into giving it 
to him on a 4 per cent, basis while the building was being 
constructed. When he was all through, I said : 

"Do not think that you have deceived me as to your 
real aim. You want to secure this property and pay 
down as little as possible until your building is completed ! 
AH of us who own property on One Hundred and Twenty- 
fifth Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues greatly 
appreciate the fine theatre you put there, and the conse- 
quent increase in the value of our property, and I am 
therefore willing to help you make this enterprise a suc- 
cess. I will at once give you a deed, and as there is no 
broker in the transaction, you need only pay the equiva- 
lent of six months' rent on account of the purchase price." 

Hammerstein gratefully accepted the offer and, sub- 
sequently, told me how he financed that entire operation 
without any capital. He struck a sand-pit and saved all 



44 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

costs of excavation, besides realizing over $30,000 for the 
sand. That furnished him nearly all the cash for the 
building. 

A little later Hammerstein got into difficulties about 
an office building next to the Harlem Opera House. He 
wanted to borrow $25,000 on a second mortgage. He 
practically put a pistol to my head, and said : 

"You folks must lend me this money, or I can't finish 
the building — and that will force me into bankruptcy." 

I looked at him and saw not the optimistic Oscar, but 
the harried Hammerstein. He went on: 

"You don't know what that will mean. If I go into 
bankruptcy, the Bank of Harlem will also have to go. 
I owe them over $50,000 and they have agreed that, if I 
can finish the building, they will buy it from me, giving 
me back my notes in part payment." 

"But that bank," I protested, "has only $100,000 cap- 
ital! How could it lend you $50,000?" 

"One day," he said, "as I was seated in my little office 
underneath the steps of the Harlem Opera House, the 
president of the Bank broke in, and leaning over my 
shoulder, handed me a blank note, and asked me, for 
God's sake, to make it out to the order of the Bank for 
$10,000. 'Don't ask any questions,' he whispered, 'but 
just do what I want, and do it quick.' I complied with 
his request, I didn't stop to put on my hat and coat, but 
followed him to the Bank; and just as I expected, there 
were the bank-examiners!" 

He paused in his narrative to give me one of those 
knowing, piercing looks of his. This was still another 
Hammerstein: he was the accomplished actor awaiting ap- 
plause for securing such an extensive and undeserved 
fine of credit from so unexpected a source. 

"Does that," he asked, "explain to you how I could 
pull his leg?" 



REAL ESTATE 45 

The impresario did not then go into bankruptcy. A 
few of us combined and lent him the money. My ac- 
tivities in Harlem also included the purchase of two solid 
blocks of lots. 

In 1887 Ehrich and I bought from Oswald Ottendorfer 
the entire block bounded by Lenox and Mount Morris 
avenues and One Hundred and Twentieth and One Hun- 
dred and Twenty-first streets. I induced the Otten- 
dorfers to split the transaction and content themselves 
with our buying the Lenox Avenue front outright and 
their giving us an option on the Mount Morris front. This 
option was sold for $10,000 profit, to Walter and Frank 
Kilpatrick, and our total profits, which we divided in May, 
1887, were $43,424.10. I always remembered the num- 
bers because of the sequence, 43, 42, 41. 

Immediately after we had sold the Ottendorfer block 
we purchased the block to the north, also for $325,000. 
In this purchase the Kilpatricks joined us. I had a 
peculiar experience when it came to drawing the con- 
tracts. As the Ottendorfers had agreed to take back 
separate mortgages on every four lots, I wanted the 
Astors, owners of this block, to do the same. Mr. South- 
mayd, the partner of William M. Evarts and Joseph H. 
Choate, attorneys for the Astors, refused to do so, and 
insisted that we give him one mortgage for the entire 
$240,000 which they had agreed they would allow to re- 
main on the property. All my pleadings were in vain. 
He even refused to take back four mortgages on eight 
lots each, saying that he could not tell which was the most 
valuable, and we might retain one or two of the plots and 
forfeit our equities on the rest. 

Mr. Southmayd told me that just prior to the Panic of 
1857, when farms of 160 acres in Brooklyn were being 
sold at very infiated prices, an old German truck-farmer 
was asked what he wanted for his 160 acres. He de- 



46 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

manded $50,000, the prevailing price at that time; 
$35,000 cash and a $15,000 mortgage. When they argued 
with him that he had reversed the order of things, Hans 
still adhered to his terms, as he claimed that the property- 
was not worth over $15,000, and when asked why he 
then insisted on $50,000, he answered, "because you paid 
that amount to my neighbour Peter for the same size 
farm." Southmayd sneeringly added that after the 
Panic of 1857 Hans got his property back for his 
mortgage. 

I would not submit to being balked by Southmayd. I 
made up my mind to talk to the famous John Jacob 
Astor himself. 

I had never met him, but he had often been pointed out 
to me, as, shortly before 9 o'clock, he walked with his 
son, Waldorf, down Fifth Avenue, from their home to 
their office in Twenty-fifth Street. Astor was a portly 
figure with impressive side-whiskers. I watched for them 
and followed them to their office and asked for an inter- 
view. My plain statement of facts made no apparent 
impression on them. I tried again: I told Southmayd's 
story of Hans: a smile broke the severity of the elder's 
face. 

"Mr. Astor," I concluded, "you must admit that it's 
unfair to your property to compare the Harlem of to-day 
with the Brooklyn of 1856." 

"You're right," said Astor. "You make me a proposi- 
tion of what relative values you put on the various plots, 
and what will be the amounts of the separate mortgages, 
and I will have it checked up." I submitted my figures 
and they were accepted without any change. The mort- 
gages were paid long before they were due, as all the 
property was promptly improved. I believe this was the 
first time that the Astors broke away from their policy of 
not selling any of their holdings. 



REAL ESTATE 47 

While these activities were going on in Harlem, a great 
many builders had erected rows and rows of private 
houses on the West Side, principally between Central 
Park West and Amsterdam Avenue, so as to be adjacent 
to the Elevated roads. In 1887 and 1888 there was a 
considerable slump, and over three hundred new private 
houses were unsold and unoccupied. Everything looked 
very gloomy. All of us who were interested in the West 
Side were terrified when an announcement came that 
there would be an unrestricted auction of the Joshua 
Jones Estate on Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth 
streets from Central Park West to within a few hundred 
feet of Amsterdam Avenue. 

Ehrich and I attended the auction, and when the first 
lot on Seventy-fourth Street was put up with the privilege 
of the balance of the block, we astonished the auctioneer 
and all present by taking all twenty-four lots. 

That afternoon Ehrich and I went up to look 
at our purchase. As we walked over the lots a couple 
of men shouted at us to get off the property. We 
asked them why, and they said: "Don't you see our 
traps? We are catching birds here." 

There is not much bird-trapping in that neighbourhood 

to-day! 

Success breeds enterprise. When we had disposed of 
these various plots at a good profit, I was ambitious to 
undertake still larger transactions. The original Rapid 
Transit Commission was then laying out the routes of the 
first subway, and I, in search of another One Hundred 
and Twenty-fifth Street, began to prospect for the district 
in which the Commission would be likely to locate a 
northerly spur, concluding that if Washington Heights 
were made accessible, One Hundred and Eighty-first 
Street would become the important thoroughfare of that 
neighbourhood. 



48 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

There were four hundred lots owned by Levi P. Mor- 
ton, then Vice-President of the United States, and George 
Bhss, of Morton, Bhss & Company, for which I had prac- 
tically concluded my negotiations in September, 1890, 
when the Old World was shocked by the failure of Baring 
Brothers, the largest banking house of England. All 
negotiations were stopped. But, in February, 1891, 
about eighty lots located in this vicinity were successfully 
disposed of at auction. Peter F. Meyer, who conducted 
that sale, assured me that less than one half of the bidders 
had secured lots. 

On the strength of this success, I asked L. J. PhiUips 
to ascertain whether, owing to the financial stress of the 
times, the owners, Morton and Bliss, would take 
$900,000 for their property, for which they had formerly 
asked $1,000,000. 

Phillips's report was brief: "Nothing less than a mil- 
lion." 

This was what I really expected, and my directions 
were briefer: "Go close it!" 

On March 26th I signed the contract. I paid $50,000 
down and agreed to pay $300,000 more on May 27th. I 
then interested about fifteen people in the syndicate, 
many of whom were very prominent in real estate. We 
were granted special facilities to open One Hundred and 
Eighty-second Street, and had aU the work done before 
the auction. 

This arrangement gave us sixteen complete blocks with 
sixty-four corners, a most unusual percentage. 

There were a number of fortuitous circumstances which 
helped to make for success. James Gordon Bennett 
having large possessions in that neighbourhood, directed 
that our sale receive generous attention in the Herald. 
There had been a secession of some of the auctioneers 
from the Real Estate Exchange, which then occupied its 



REAL ESTATE 49 

own building at No. 65 Liberty Street. Their manager 
called and said that their Board of Directors were ready 
to do almost anything that I would ask to secure the sale. 
They allowed me to display in the salesroom during all of 
May a sign 60 feet wide and 20 feet in height, and they 
also agreed that they would permit no other sale on 
Mav 26th. 

We had numerous conferences, and none of my asso- 
ciates agreed with me that it was possible to sell so many 
lots at one session, but I was absolutely firm and insisted 
that it be tried. I conceded that I would stop the auction 
if I found that the purchasers had been exhausted, or that 
the lots were being sold at a loss. Thousands of people 
visited the property on the preceding Saturdays and Sun- 
days. We could have sold the property on the 26th of 
May without having made our final payment, and could 
have used the proceeds of the sale for that purpose, but 
to avoid any possible question as to whether we had taken 
title or not, we closed the title on the day before the sale. 
As we were about leaving Morton, Bliss & Company's 
offices, both Bhss and Morton expressed the wish that we 
might have a great success the next day, and the genial 
Vice-President of the United States added: "If there is 
anything I can do, please call upon me." In response, I 
asked him whether he would come over to the auction- 
room and if necessary, to convince the pubhc of our 
authority to sell the property, whether he would make a 
statement from the auctioneer's stand. He consented to 
do so and waited at his office until I notified him that 
there was no need of his remaining any longer. 

When the auction started, the entire floor as well as 
the auction stands and gallery were crowded to capacity. 
The bidding was very lively, and when some of the One 
Hundred and Eighty-first Street corner lots sold for over 
$10,000, there was considerable applause. 



50 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

The auction lasted until seven o'clock, and every one of 
the 411 lots was sold. Ex-Register John Reilly had 
paid the highest prices : he bought the entire front on the 
west side of St. Nicholas Avenue from One Hundred and 
Eightieth to One Hundred and Eighty-first streets, 
and he afterward confided to me that he had suc- 
ceeded where we failed in finding out that the Subway 
was to go through St. Nicholas Avenue, and that there 
was to be a station at One Hundred and Eighty-first 
Street. The corners of One Hundred and Eighty-first 
Street and St. Nicholas Avenue are to-day the most val- 
uable on Washington Heights. 

Our syndicate was well satisfied with the result, as we 
divided a profit of $480,000 amongst the men who had 
invested $300,000. They showed their appreciation of my 
work by presenting me with a magnificent silver service, 
which was greatly admired by my Turkish visitors in 
Constantinople. 

I was quite carried away with my success, and my 
enthusiasm made me an easy prey to the temptation 
of participating in a still larger scheme — the develop- 
ment of the Town of Bridgeport, Alabama. A few years 
prior to 1891 there had been a great boom in Birming- 
ham and Anniston, so that I was easily persuaded by the 
firm that had been associated with me in the purchase 
of the Astor Block to go in with them to develop 
Bridgeport. 

All of us in the North felt that the South was "coming 
back" and Bridgeport was near coal and iron fields and 
had good water power. We started development, stove- 
and iron-pipe companies, a hotel, and a bank. We be- 
lieved, with energetic New Yorkers back of it, this little 
town on the Tennessee River could be made a great manu- 
facturing centre; we all forgot that it was very far from 
Broadway. Before I knew it, I had sunk more than 



REAL ESTATE 51 

my Washington Heights profit, and I am still paying 
taxes on some of the land that I bought at that time. 

The loss of that money was a wholesome lesson, and 
I resolved to stick to New York. I broke this resolve on 
only one other occasion, and that was my venture into the 
Bamberger-Delaware gold mine: we took out plenty of 
gold — something like $600,000 a year, but it cost us 
more than that to do so. That investment also proved a 
total loss. 

In the winter of 1891 we began an operation which was 
to result in winning the record for rapid construction up 
to that date. Our tenants in the Hoagland property at 
Fifteenth Street and Sixth Avenue failed. We concluded 
to tear down the old buildings and erect a new one. We 
had been negotiating unsuccessfully with Baumann, the 
furniture dealer, so we planned with our architect to put 
up a four-story building. I was in the architect's office 
the latter part of January, when in walked Mr. Baumann 
and told me that if I would guarantee to finish the build- 
ing by April 30th, he would pay the price I asked. 

I consulted my architect, Albert Buchman. 

"It's impossible," he declared, "four and a half months 
— June 15th is the earliest date conceivable." 

"Even if we use double shifts?" 

"Even if we use double shifts." 

"Well," I said, "I'm going to chance it." 

Buchman's allotment for the excavation was fifteen 
days. I sent for Patrick Norton, who had done some ex- 
cavating work for me in Harlem. 

"Pat," I asked, after I had sketched the case, "is there 
any objection to working twenty-four hours a day?" 

"That depends," said he. 

"Well, if you went at it on that basis, couldn't you fin- 
ish this job in seven instead of fifteen days? I'll pay for 
the light, and I'll give you 25 per cent, extra." 



52 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Norton belonged to the type of bluff, enterprising con- 
tractors. The novelty appealed to him, and he accepted 
it on the spot and completed the job on time. 

Everything else went with similar speed. We were 
told that it would take some time to get the iron posts 
required for the cellar; I showed our plans to a man 
from Jackson & Company, and asked him whether, for an 
extra consideration, he could have the posts required for 
the job finished within a week. Within three days he 
made his deliveries. We changed our specifications and 
substituted wooden ceilings for plaster. We had the 
building finished and the elevators running on April 27th. 
The building was a four-story structure with an iron front 
covering five full lots, and we erected it for a trifle under 
$110,000. 

I had another but less satisfactory experience with Pat 

Norton : 

In the winter of '97 I bought from Collis P. Huntington 
a tract of land running from One Hundred and Thirty- 
eighth to One Hundred and Forty-first streets and from 
St. Ann Avenue eastward. The Title Company dis- 
covered that Huntington did not own as large an area as' 
was described in the contract, so I called on him to ask for 
a reduction. It was a memorable sight to behold this 
great old gentlemen, 6 feet 3 inches in height, over eighty 
years of age, with as keen an intellect as a man of thirty, 
trying to fathom my motives and playing with me as a 
cat plays with a mouse. He leaned forward to get close 
to me, adjusting his little skull cap a bit, and said: 

"Suppose I make you no concession at all! Are you 
going to throw up that contract, or take the property?" 

"I will take the property because I expect to make a 
profit," I said, "but I am going to rely on you to do the 
fair thing by me." 

He sat back in his chair and told me his experiences 



REAL ESTATE 53 

with Trenor W. Park, who wanted to buy a raih'oad from 
him. A dispute arose about it, which resulted in a law- 
suit. Afterwards, Park wanted to settle and buy him 
out. Huntington fixed the price, and as Park hesitated, 
he told him that for every day he delayed in accepting 
the offer he would add $100,000 to his price, and as seven 
days had expired since his first offer, the price was 
$700,000 more that day. Park agreed to that figure 
before he left the room. 

"My experience," said Huntington, "is that no man 
benefits by law-suits, but that no man can succeed if he is 
afraid of them. Now, what do you really think would 
be the fair thing for me to do in your case?" 

I mentioned a sum, and he said : 

"Strange to say, that is the figure I had in my mind." 
He dictated a letter then and there, agreeing to the re- 
duction. 

We were anxious to dispose of the Huntington property 
at auction, and hurriedly prepared it. There was a stone 
fence running diagonally over the southerly part of the 
property, and I thought it would improve the appearance 
of this place to have the stones removed, and as Norton 
was putting through the streets and laying the sidewalks, 
I made a contract to have him do so for $800. The next 
morning I was impelled to visit the Huntington property. 
I was amazed to find 150 Italians working shoulder to 
shoulder, digging a trench alongside the stone wall, and 
dumping the stones into it. I stopped them and sent 
for Norton. When he came, instead of being ready to 
apologize, he wore a broad grin and said that he never ex- 
pected me to come there, as I always came alternate days : 
by the second day no trace of that trench would have been 
left — what difference would it make to me, as long as it 
had disappeared, where it had gone? 
, We advertised an auction of this property for April 5, 



54 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

1898. Because of the expectation of a war with Spain, 
a number of people asked me to abandon the sale. I 
agreed with their arguments that the sale would not suc- 
ceed, but I wanted to see if my analysis of the psychology 
of prospective buyers was correct, which was, that some 
persons expecting big bargains would come to the sale 
and would buy. So I concluded to put up a few of the 
least valuable lots — those that had considerably more rock 
above the surface — and then try some of the St. Ann 
Avenue fronts. Just as I expected, the rock lots brought 
a very low price, but really all they were worth, and were 
purchased by one of the shrewdest dealers in New York. 
We stopped the sale after thirty were sold. 

In the winter of 1894 great excitement was caused 
among the real estate men by mysterious efforts to secure 
the block on the east side of Sixth Avenue between Eigh- 
teenth and Nineteenth streets. I was keenly interested 
because if the east side of Sixth Avenue was to be devel- 
oped it would injure our Hoagland property, especially 
if it were a retail concern, which would throw the travel 
from Macy's on the east side. I, therefore, called on my 
old friend Wilham R. Rose, who was acting as attorney 
in the matter. On my assuring him that I wished to 
benefit by my information without interfering with his 
scheme, he told me that the site was being collected for a 
retail drygoods store with a main entrance on Sixth Ave- 
nue, and it finally turned out to be Siegel-Cooper & Com- 
pany. I immediately negotiated for the properties on 
the east side of Sixth Avenue adjoining this block and 
secured for Lachman, Morgenthau & Goldsmith from 
William Waldorf Astor the Nineteenth Street corner 
now occupied by the Alexander Building, and for myself 
alone the entire block from Seventeenth to Eighteenth 
street to a depth of 180 feet, from some of the descendants 
of John Jacob Astor. Simultaneously with the completion 




Mr. IVlorgenthau playfully refers to this picture as the 
Morgenthau dynasty 



REAL ESTATE 55 

of the Siegel-Cooper Company, I modernized the block 
front from Seventeenth to Eighteenth Street, and we 
erected a new building on the corner of Nineteenth Street, 
and sold it to Andrew Alexander. 

One evening Alwyn Ball, Jr., told me that Henry 
Parish wanted to sell his house at the corner of Fifth Ave- 
nue and Nineteenth Street. I suggested that I would 
buy the property if Mr. Parish would take in part pay- 
ment the second mortgage of $100,000 that Alexander 
had given us on his corner. The Astor Estate held the 
first mortgage of $100,000. Ball looked aghast. 

"Why," he said, "that's a preposterous proposition! 
The idea of offering a second mortgage on a leasehold for 
the fee of a first-class Fifth Avenue corner, and to make 
it to so conservative a man as Mr. Parish ! He has never 
even had a telephone in the offices of the New York Life 
Insurance & Trust Company, of which he is president! 
You must want me to be kicked downstairs." 

"You're absolutely mistaken," I answered. "IVIr. Par- 
ish is constantly buying mercantile notes for his Trust 
Company, and will know that this personal bond of 
Andrew Alexander's, guaranteed by me, is as good as any 
note that he has in his wallet. His office is on the ground 
floor — you needn't be afraid of being kicked downstairs." 

Ball presented the offer and Parish accepted it. The 
mortgage was paid on its due date : I made a small profit 
on the Parish house and disposed of an almost unmarket- 
able mortgage without any loss; Ball made a good com- 
mission, and so all were happy. 

Shortly after I had another deal with William Waldorf 
Astor. It involved a part of the Semler farm on the 
east side from Fourth to Tenth streets. My negotiations 
with Charles A. Peabody, now president of the Mutual 
Life Insurance Company of New York, were drawn out 
for over six months, as his letters had to follow Astor all 



56 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

over Europe. After we had come to a definite arrange- 
ment, war was declared with Spain. Peabody surprised 
me one day when he came unannounced to my office to 
ask me whether I was still willing to make the purchase. 
I told him that I was convinced that the war would not 
affect the thirty Germans who were occupying these 
houses, and to whom I expected to sell the fees ; and that 
I would be more pleased if he would sell me one hundred 
houses instead of forty. We entered into a contract to 
purchase forty lots on which the leases expired within a 
year. There was tremendous excitement among the 
tenants; protest meetings were called and cables sent to 
Astor. This brought me another visit from Mr. Peabody. 

"Now, Morgenthau," he said after sketching his pre- 
dicament, "will you try to help us out?" 

"I am perfectly willing," I said, "to take other property 
of Mr. Astor's, and let him deal direct with the objecting 
tenants, but I want a corner plot for a corner plot, and an 
inside avenue plot for an inside avenue plot and as many 
inside street lots as I was to have had. Although you 
have no properties on which the leases terminate the same 
time as these for which I am under contract, I am willing 
to buy them on the same basis," — which was multiplying 
the annual ground rent by twenty. 

Peabody said that this was eminently fair; he would 
try and show his appreciation, which he did, by selling us 
forty-four plots instead of forty. We consummated the 
transaction on July 18, 1898. The deed that was given 
was the first in which Wilham Waldorf Astor failed to 
describe himself as "of the City of New York." It was 
a very satisfactory transaction, as all but three of the ten- 
ants availed themselves of the privilege we gave them to 
buy the property from us at a reasonable profit. 

The year 1898 marked the twentieth anniversary of 
Lachman, Morgenthau & Goldsmith. As I was leaving 



REAL ESTATE 57 

for my summer vacation, my partners urged me to plan 
out how we could celebrate that event. While I was 
fishing in the Thousand Islands, the infrequency of the 
bites of the black bass left me ample time for reflection, 
and I concluded that instead of a celebration, it would 
be a separation. I had felt so incUned for many years, 
but the delightful association with my partners, the ex- 
treme consideration they constantly showed me, the deep 
affection we felt for one another, had caused me to delay, 
and their persuasion not to do so had prevented my taking 
the final step. Here during these uninterrupted hours on 
the St. Lawrence, I was able to look at myself objectively 
and from both a retrospective and prospective point of 
view. 

The success of my real estate operations had won me 
away from the exclusive devotion to the law which is so 
essential to rise in that profession. In figuring the profits 
that had been made by the various real estate syndicates 
that I had managed since 1891, I was surprised at the 
total, and realizing that at no one time had I had the use 
of more than $500,000 of my friends' and my own money, 
I concluded that if I had had a company with that amount 
of capital, and could show the profits that had been made 
as surplus, the good will of such a company would be very 
valuable and would be reflected in the selling price of the 
stock. So why not induce some leading financiers to join 
me in the formation of a real estate trust company, which 
would do for real estate what the banking institutionsj 
have done for the railroads and industrials? 

I wrote my partners of my decision, and told them that 
I would withdraw from the firm on January 1, 1899. 

Among others with whom I discussed my scheme were 
Frederick Southack and Alwyn Ball, Jr., who had sur- 
prised me by informing me that they had had a similar 
thought and had already secured from the New York 



58 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Legislature a special charter granting the privileges that 
would fit my scheme. 

They asked me to join them and accept the presidency 
of this company. I accepted conditionally, telling them, 
however, that I would aim very high as to my associates 
and would insist that as chairman of the executive com- 
mittee there be secured either the leading banker, J. P. 
Morgan, or the leading bank president, James Stillman, 
or the leading trust company president, F. P. Olcott. 

Southack and James H. Post, who was a director in 
the National City Bank, presented the scheme to Mr. 
Stillman, who kept it under advisement for several weeks, 
but finally declined because he had been advised that some 
of our operations might be too speculative. In the mean- 
time, Southack and Ball had, in addition to Mr. Post, 
interested Henry O. Havemeyer, John D. Crimmins, and 
several others. They then presented the matter to Mr. 
F. P. Olcott, president of the Central Trust Company, 
who was a trustee of the estate of Southack's father. 
Olcott listened to the outhning of the plans of such a 
company, and when they proposed me as president and 
told him of the great profits I had made in real estate, he 
said that when it came to any proposition involving real 
estate, he was entirely guided by Hugh J. Grant, whose 
office adjoined his. 

Grant had, while Mayor of New York, appointed 
Olcott to the first Rapid Transit Commission, and when 
he was appointed receiver of the St. Nicholas Bank, Grant 
called on Olcott and availed himself of an offer thereto- 
fore made him by Olcott to be of service to him. He told 
Olcott that he was very anxious to make a record as re- 
ceiver, and asked an immediate loan of as much as the 
assets of the bank justified to enable him to declare 
promptly a substantial dividend to the depositors. Olcott 
not only did this, but was so pleased with the manner in 



REAL ESTATE 59 

which Grant handled the receivership, that he urged him 
to abandon his railway advertising business. He did so, 
and took offices next to Olcott and above those of Brady, 
and became the third member of that famous combina- 
tion — Brady, the creator of the schemes; Olcott, the finan- 
cier; and Grant, the expert in political and municipal 
affairs. 

He called Grant into the office. Grant listened most 
attentively to the proposition, and then said : 

"Morgenthau has been too successful to be willing to 
work for a salary and accept the presidency of a com- 
pany." 

As Southack and Ball insisted that he was mistaken. 
Grant, with his usual directness, came right over to see 
me. That visit was a very memorable one for me. 
We carefully canvassed the entire proposition and con- 
cluded then and there that not only was I to take the 
presidency, but that Grant should take the vice- 
presidency, and become a visible figure in finance and 
cease being known as an unattached associate of Olcott 
and Brady. 

Grant's greatest faculty was in being able to "sniff" 
success, and through his tremendous amiability — which 
had made him so popular a man in New York — he was 
able to appeal to successful men, who heartily welcomed 
his cooperation on equal terms with themselves in their 
various enterprises. He also had watched me during my 
career, and realized the wisdom of a combination with me 
from his point of view; while I realized that a close co- 
operation — a supplementing of one another — would benefit 
us both, so we fell into each other's arms. Grant and I 
then and there agreed to join forces. He agreed to take 
1,000 shares for himself, 1,000 shares for Mr. Olcott, and 
within an hour telephoned me to note also Anthony N. 
Brady's subscription for 1,000 shares. That afternoon 



60 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

when Southack and Ball came in and heard of the sub- 
scriptions, they each insisted upon the right to subscribe 
for 1,000 shares. 

This disposed of one half of the stock. I wanted one 
half of the remaining 5,000 shares, but unfortunately for 
me, the others insisted that I should content myself with 
1,000, and that the other 4,000 should be distributed 
amongst the rest of the directors, and amongst lawyers and 
real estate operators and brokers, whose interests would 
produce business for the company. There was a tre- 
mendous scramble for the stock, and it was impossible for 
us to satisfy the demand. 

A few days later Grant introduced me to Olcott, who 
gave me quite a dissertation on how to run a trust com- 
pany. He said that the most important thing was to 
have no men around who had any "yellow" in them and 
that the president must get the business and leave it to 
the other officers to execute it and carry out the details. 
He laid the greatest stress on the fact that the head of 
a company must disregard details entirely. 

"He ought constantly to have his mind," said Olcott, 
"on the larger matters, and should abstain from doing any 
work that can be done by any expert help that can be 
hired." 

On my part, I gave to Olcott a sketch of how I thought 
the company should be developed, explaining to him that 
the prejudice of the big trust companies and banks against 
real estate was not justified, and that the financial inter- 
ests of New York had so far failed to recognize the in- 
creased stability of real estate, due to the enlarged popu- 
lation of the city and to the definite fixation of certain 
trades in certain neighbourhoods. I instanced the finan- 
cial centre in Wall Street; the jewellery centre in Maiden 
Lane ; the retail centres, and the definite northward devel- 
opment of Broadway. I also explained how many very 



REAL ESTATE 61 

substantial men had entered the real estate field, and how 
the general prosperity of the country had improved values 
in New York City. 

"Now," I said, "this group of successful men can only 
handle the large units that the exigencies of the time are 
demanding if they have additional financial facilities 
given them. Those facilities our company should provide." 

I explained how many groups of men had formed 
real estate corporations, only to discover that even then 
their resources were inadequate to handle all the profit- 
able business that was coming to them. I told of some of 
my own larger transactions; how I always had to get 
others to help me finance them, and how, therefore, such a 
company as the one we proposed forming would undoubt- 
edly become the s\Tidicate manager of some of the larger 
operations. I told him if he had no objections, we could 
secure large deposits. Olcott replied that my plans would 
in no way conflict with his corporatioji, and that I should 
do any business that I deemed profitable. He asked me 
whom I wanted on the board, and I told him that I should 
like to have some representatives of the INIutual Life 
Insurance Company, who were then the largest investors 
in mortgages on New York City real estate, and sug- 
gested ]\Iessrs. Juilliard and Jarvie, the two best known 
and most influential members of its board. 

We settled on a number of other directors, and a few 
days later Stillman sent word that he wanted some of the 
stock. Olcott agreed that he should only be given some 
of the stock if he consented to serve on the Executive Com- 
mittee. Post and Southack, who had brought the mes- 
sage, hesitated to deliver this answer, as they thought we 
ought heartily to welcome Stillman's interest in our corpo- 
ration, and when they put the proposition to Mr. Still- 
man, he asked them, in his mystifying manner, whether 
this was an ultimatum. They hesitated to admit it. They 



62 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

were really afraid of him, and he was simply tantalizing 
them about his acceptance, which he finally gave them. 
He was allotted only 200 shares, and within a year he 
sent for me and in his peculiar teasing way told me that 
he was dissatisfied with his connection with the company. 
When I asked him why, he said that he had not a sufficiently 
large interest. I had to coax Olcott to sell 300 of his 
1,000 shares for as much as he had paid for his entire 
1,000. I doubt if I could have persuaded him to sell to 
any one else. It was simply, as he put it, that he wanted 
the satisfaction of making "that smart neighbour of his" 
— as he often called Stillman, their offices in adjoining 
buildings — "put him on velvet in this transaction." 

I shall tell later on how, several times, I had to go on 
bended knees to have some of these men accept what 
seemed to me tremendous profits. 

I was now ready to proceed to business, as president of 
the Central Realty, Bond & Trust Company. 



CHAPTER V 

FINANCE 

I HAD suddenly been catapulted from my compara- 
tively unknown law office into the very midst of high 
finance. I was president of a board of directors in 
which but a few weeks ago I should have rejoiced to have 
been the junior member. My associates were all leaders- 
in their various j)ursuits, and gloried in the power and 
wealth that they had accumulated while struggling to 
reach these eminent positions. 

At first I was but a silent observer amongst a lot of 
gladiators. Here was a set of dominators watching a 
newcomer who also had dared to try to reach the top, and 
had the good sense to court their cooperation. To most 
of them real estate was a closed book. They had looked 
upon it as what might be called a frozen commodity, while 
they had dealt in liquid assets. They were anxious to see 
whether this novice could capitalize real estate equities. 
Stories of the successes that I had had in real estate had 
been told and exaggerated until, even to these big money- 
makers, they seemed attractive. Each one prided himself 
that his joining the other eminent leaders in this enter- 
prise increased its chances of success. The fact that the 
stock was selling at double its issue price within three 
months showed that the public was ready to discount the 
possibilities. They bought me on my past performances. 
To them I was just a new machine which must demon- 
strate its capacity. I simply had to make good, or be dis- 
placed. 

My position as president of this company involved 



64 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

me in a series of financial encounters with the biggest men 
in Wall Street, encounters that are worth describing be- 
cause they illustrate the methods by which the great for- 
tunes of the greatest period of expansion in American 
finance were made. I have not heard of any man who 
had intimate business relations with the financial giants of 
that period, who has described, from his own experience, 
the intrigues and passions, the personalities and methods, 
of those men who dominated the financial structure of 
America. My experiences with them were not connected 
with their biggest deals, but they were thoroughly repre- 
sentative of all their operations — and, as such, I feel they 
are of historical interest and especially so as they are ex- 
ceptional revelations of a type of exceptional men whose 
business activities have influenced the great development 
of American Commerce. I might almost entitle this 
chapter: "How Big Financial Deals Are Made." It is 
a very human story — full, I mean, of human nature, with 
its foibles of ambition, jealousy, hatred, pride, and cun- 
ning. 

When, as president of my Board of Directors, I sat at 
the head of the table at our meetings, and looked down 
either side of the table, my eyes fell upon at least half a 
dozen of the greatest financial giants of the day — men 
who, as heads of enormous and often clashing interests, 
represented nearly every element in the epic struggle for 
the financial supremacy of America — that savage strug- 
gle which the public at large sensed but vaguely, and 
which it saw clearly only at the great moments of climax, 
as when the veil was lifted by the famous hfe insurance 
investigation, and later by the Pujo investigation. About 
this board were six representative financiers. These men 
were as diverse in their appearance and character and 
their methods as the interests they personified. The battle 
between the banks on the one hand and the trust com- 



FINANCE 65 

panics on the other, was represented by James Stilhnan 
and Frederic P. Olcott. Stilhnan, as became the cham- 
pion of the older type of institutions, the banks, was a per- 
fect example of the well-built man of the world, sartori- 
ally correct, soft spoken, with a tendency toward cynical 
humour, and with a tongue capable of devastating sar- 
casms, while Olcott, as became the representative of the 
more recent competitors in the general banking business, 
the trust companies, was a type of the rough-and-ready, 
physically powerful, hard-spoken, tumultuous fighter. 
There was nothing conciliatory in his make-up. He 
rather enjoyed wrangling with his competitors, and prided 
himself on never having become money-mad, and looked 
commiseratingly on those who had. He was more inter- 
ested in this financial struggle as a test of intellectual 
prowess, but wanted to remain an amateur gladiator 
rather than to become a professional wealth accumulator. 
Olcott's burly figure, carelessly clad, surmounted by a 
huge, l)ucket-like head, adorned with unbelievably big and 
protruding ears, and illuminated with eyes that could 
glare terrifyingly, was in striking contrast with Stillman's 
smooth-buttoned figure, his keen, distinguished face, and 
eyes that menaced by their subtlety and gleam of concen- 
trated will, but whose whole manner betokened a meas- 
ured, studied self-restraint. 

The war between the sugar trust and the independent 
sugar refiners was represented by Henry O. Havemeyer 
and James N. Jarvie. They never sat on the same side 
of the table, but always facing each other — Havemeyer 
big, florid, and blustering — displaying in every move the 
consciousness of long-exercised power, and resenting that 
the combination of all the sugar interests should be com- 
pelled to defend its monopoly which was threatened by the 
intrusion of a mere coffee concern, Arbuckle Bros., in 
which Jarvie had infused such a vigorous, aggressive 



66 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

spirit — Jarvie who had no prior generations of successful 
men to point to, but had risen from the bottom and was 
then the leading spirit of his firm — a much courted man for 
director in leading corporations — a man who not only di- 
rected the investments and loaning out of the Arbuckle 
fortune, but was also a leader in all the companies with 
which he was connected. Possessed of all the strong and 
best points of a real Scotchman, caution, cumulativeness, 
and stick-to-it-iveness, he was like an eager bull terrier 
worrying at the haunches of a mastiff, and watching every 
instant for a chance to spring. 

The rivalry between the insurance companies was rep- 
resented by A. D. Juilliard and James Hazen Hyde. 
Juilliard, the distinguished merchant, philanthropist, and 
patron of music, personified the INIutual Life Insurance 
Company, of which he was one of the directing spirits; 
and young Hyde, the perfumed dandy and spoiled child 
of quickly gotten riches, personified the Equitable Life 
Insurance Company and its astonishing rise to financial 
greatness. 

By a strange irony of fate, my association with these 
men was destined to make me one of the key figures in the 
life insurance investigation of 1905, which hurled young 
Hyde from a dazzling financial eminence and limitless 
possibilities and transferred him to Paris among the ex- 
patriates there, and which, by the legislation that followed 
the exposure of corrupt financial practices, altered the 
whole financial structure of America. 

I shall tell that story at its proper place in this chapter, 
but, first, I propose to give the reader a picture of the way 
in which some financial deals were made in "Wall 
Street," and the control of corporations bandied about by 
a nod of the head, frequently given as a reward for a per- 
sonal favour, or withheld as punishment for a personal 
slight. 



FINANCE 67 

The following incidents in my own financial transac- 
tions will illustrate this system which I by no means indis- 
criminately condemn, as it is an essential requirement of 
the broader development of the commerce of the United 
States, but which, unfortunately, has again and again been 
shamefully abused, so that the reputation of the deserving 
had suffered almost as much as that of the evil doers. 

In 1901 we bought some property from a client of D. 
B. Ogden, the vice-president of the La^vj^ers' Title Com- 
pany, who mildly remonstrated with me by saying : 

"You are one of the original subscribers to the Law- 
yers' Title Company, yet you do all your business with the 
Title Guarantee & Trust Company. Why not with us?" 

I said: 

"In all our large transactions, we have to borrow money 
on mortgages; we do not want to wait until you offer 
them around and try and place them. The other com- 
pany with their enormous resources and backing gave us 
a prompt answer. If you want to enter this very profit- 
able field of large loans, let me double your capital of 
$1,000,000 and also secure for you similar backing to that 
possessed by your competitor. Though your stock is sell- 
ing below book value, I am willing to take the extra issue 
at book A'alue, and place it with interests that will give you 
a credit of $5,000,000 and thus enable you promptly to 
handle the biggest transactions, which are now monopo- 
lized by the Title Guarantee & Trust Company." 

AVithin an hour Edward W. Coggeshall, the president 
of the Lawj^ers' Title Company, called and asked me to 
repeat my proposition directly to him. I did so, and he 
said to me: "When can you make a definite binding 
offer?" I inquired whether he wanted my personal, or 
the Company's offer, and when he agreed to deal with me 
personally, I asked him to wait until I dictated the propo- 
sition in his presence, and he did. Two days later he in- 



68 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

fonned me that his Board of Directors desired to offer 
3,000 shares of the new stock of their stockholders, and 
could therefore only sell me 7,000 shares, and hence they 
would be satisfied with a credit of four million dollars. I 
consented to this change and immediately called on the 
officials of the Equitable Life Insurance Company and ar- 
ranged with INIr. Squires, the chairman of the Finance 
Committee, that they would buy 2,000 shares of the stock, 
and agree to loan the company two milHon dollars on 
mortgages. I suggested that Mr. Thomas N. Jordan, 
their comptroller, should act as one of the experts to fix 
the value of the stock. 

I next called upon Mr. Olcott, who would not obligate 
the Central Trust Company to make any definite loan, 
but authorized me to agree on behalf of the Central Realty 
Bond & Trust Company to loan one million dollars on 
mortgages and to subscribe 2,000 shares of the stock. 

I then called up Mr. James Stillman and was informed 
that he was at home nursing a cold. Within half an hour 
Mr. Stilhnan telephoned me to inquire if it was something 
old or new that I wished to see him about. When I 
answered "New," he requested me to come to his house at 
three o'clock that afternoon. I was dilating upon the 
matter for fully twenty minutes when I suddenly became 
aware that Stillman had not asked a single question, and 
I so told him, and asked whether this was because he was 
not interested in the matter. He answered: "I have but 
one question: how large an interest am I to have?" I of- 
fered him 1,500 shares if he would agree to loan the com- 
pany one million dollars. He said that he would take the 
stock, as he thoroughly believed in the Title Insurance 
business and that the City Bank would be glad to make the 
loan to the Title Company if the latter would keep a bal- 
ance with them which would justify them in doing so. So 
I had secured the required credit and placed 5,500 shares 



FINANCE 69 

of the stock. That same day Coggeshall and I closed the 
matter. The 1,500 remaining shares were distributed 
among some of our friends who we thought could help the 
Lawyers' Title Company. A few days later Mr. Olcott 
sent for me, and told me that my handling of the increase 
of the La^vyers' Title Company's capital stock had raised 
quite a tempest amongst the Mutual Life crowd: that its 
president, Richard A. INIcCurdy, had asked Olcott at a 
directors' meeting of the Bank of Commerce why the 
Mutual Life had not been invited to participate in this in- 
crease. 

When Olcott explained to him that we had felt that the 
Mutual Life was so largely interested in the Title Guar- 
antee & Trust Comj^any that they would hardly be of 
much help to its greatest competitor, while the Equitable 
Life was unattached in that respect and would prove a 
good ally. Then INIcCurdy said: "Well, why was not I 
personally offered a few hundred shares, as I understand 
that you and Jarvie and Juilliard have received some?" 
This aggravated Olcott, and with a very emphatic desig- 
nation of INIcCurdy's character, he said to him: "So, that's 
your size?" and that, of course, was pouring oil upon the 
flames. 

Olcott told me that McCurdy intimated that he would 
expect Jarvie, Juilliard and Coleman to resign from our 
company unless the Mutual Life were taken care of in 
this matter. Olcott strongly advised me to defy and fight 
them, while on the other hand Juilliard and Jarvie told 
me that it was as much Mr. Olcott's manner and forcible 
language as my neglect in taking care of the Mutual Life 
interests that had aggravated Mr. McCurdy. Juilliard 
told me that it would be a pity to break up our happy little 
family, and that if I would use my tact, I could satisfac- 
torily adjust the matter. Although our company had pro- 
gressed very nicely, in my opinion it was hardly strong 



70 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

enough to antagonize so important an interest as the 
Mutual Life. I, therefore, consented to let Juilliard ar- 
range an interview between McCurdy and myself. I was 
ushered into the well-known throne-room and McCurdy 
told me at great length of his connections with the Title 
Guarantee & Trust Company and that as the Mutual Life 
was the largest lender on mortgages and some of its best 
directors were on my board, I should have given the com- 
pany an opportunity to participate in this matter. He said 
that the company could have divided their allegiance and 
have done business with both the title companies. I in- 
formed him that I regretted that I had not known his de- 
sire and that now it was too late, but that I was arranging 
to increase the capital stock of the Lawyers' Mortgage 
Company and would gladly put the Mutual Life on the 
same basis as the Equitable Life. That did not seem to 
satisfy him. He wanted to be interested in the La^vyers' 
Title Company. He was insistent that he wanted some of 
the stock of the Title Company and rather spurned the 
Lawyers' Mortgage stock. 

Coggeshall and I finally concluded that we would try 
to have Mr. Stillman sell some or all of his stock to the 
Mutual Life. Stillman absolutely refused to do so when 
first requested, and he made me accept it as a personal 
favour when he finally consented to sell 1,000 shares for 
which he had paid $174,000 for $350,000 to the Mutual 
Life. Stillman thought that if the Mutual and Equitable 
were going to fight for the control of the Law\^ers' Title 
Company, as he put it, the stock would go to $500 a share. 
While I was arguing with him as to the splendid profit 
this was, he said to me: "Morgenthau, you don't under- 
stand what profits we are in the habit of making," and 
told me that when the Northern Pacific was levying a 
$15 assessment, William Rockefeller and he had agreed 
to pay the assessment on all the stock on which the stock- 



FINANCE 71 

holders would default, and by so doing, had secured about 
270,000 shares, had agreed not to sell it until it showed 
them a profit of $100 a share, which it did, and he said 
that even then they regretted that they had sold it 
before the corner in Northern Pacific had occurred, be- 
cause thereby they lost a very big additional profit that 
they might otherwise have made. 

INIcCurdy urged me to try and consolidate the Title 
Guarantee & Trust Company and the Lawyers' Title 
Company, as this would have given him a larger interest 
in the new company than the Equitable Life possessed. 
As the leading spirits in neither company were very keen 
about it, it failed of accomplishment; thereafter we con- 
summated the increase of the stock of the Lawyers' 
Mortgage Company from $300,000 to $1,000,000. I 
personally agreed to buy from the company 5,500 shares 
of an increase of 7,000 shares of the stock at $125. The 
Equitable Life interests received 1,500, and 1,000 shares 
went to the Mutual Life interests. It was the distribu- 
tion of these shares and the method in which they were 
finally purchased by the respective companies that were 
material factors in the condemnation of Messrs. McCurdy 
and Hyde by the Armstrong Committee, but our com- 
pany made excellent connections with both the Lawyers' 
Title and the Lawyers' INIortgage companies, and made 
very substantial profits in later on disposing of the stock. 

After these two connections had been made. Grant and 
I felt that to complete our circle we would also require a 
construction company. 

The Fuller Company had made a great success in the 
West and was invading the East. Mayor Grant was 
very much impressed with the scheme, but not so Olcott, 
Brady, and Crimmins, who had serious objections to a 
contracting company. Before abandoning the scheme, 
however, we submitted it to Mr. James Stilhiian. He 



72 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

listened attentively, and then told us that if we adhered 
to it, notwithstanding the opposition of Olcott, Brady, and 
Crimmins, he would join us, with the distinct condition, 
however, that he was not to dispose of any of the stock, or 
be asked to interest any one in the enterprise. But he 
agreed that, as his contribution to the matter, he would 
finance Grant and myself by loaning us the full amount 
that was required at a very reasonable rate of interest, and 
carry us for the Hfe of the transaction. 

A few days afterward Stillman sent for me and asked 
me how much of the preferred stock we had actually 
sold. When I told him the amount, he said: "Do not 
sell any more. As I was bicycling up Park Avenue yes- 
terday, I was constantly thinking of Mr. Black's state- 
ment, that New York had to be rebuilt, and the more I 
looked around me, the more convinced I became that he 
was right. We ought to secure a substantial share of the 
work at a profitable commission," he said, "and therefore 
we ought not to sell any more of the preferred stock." 

We did not do so until about ten months later when 
Black made us a proposition on behalf of Charles M. 
Schwab, who was willing to exchange U. S. Steel Pre- 
ferred for Fuller Preferred, on even terms. Black 
strongly recommended it, as he thought we might secure 
prompter deliveries of our steel, which at that time were 
very slow and unsatisfactory, if Mr. Schwab were in- 
terested in our company. Grant and I immediately dis- 
posed of the 2,500 shares that each of us had taken and it 
was rather amusing to have Stillman ask us in that know- 
ing way of his whether he was justified in concluding from 
the observations he had made of the sales of U. S. Steel 
Preferred as recorded on the tape that we had disposed of 
all our stock. We told him we had. A few days later, 
at a meeting, he told us with great satisfaction that by 
letting us rush ours off first, he, through careful seUing, 



FINANCE 73 

secured on an average of three quarters of a point more 
than we had. 

Mr. Schwab became a member of our board, and I 
had never before met any one who equalled him in that 
extraordinary capacity of intelligently reading and con- 
clusively analyzing a financial statement at a single glance 
that seemed hasty and superficial. 

The foregoing incidents are samples of the minor 
tactics on the field of battle in the vast struggle which 
was waging for the financial control of America. I shall 
now outline the major strategy of that struggle as it 
impressed me from my slight contact with it. 

The decade from 1896 to 1906 was the period of the 
most gigantic expansion of business in all American 
history, and, indeed, in all the history of the world. In 
that decade the slowly fertilized economic resources of 
the United States suddenly yielded a bewildering crop of 
industries. Vast railroad systems were projected and 
built into being with magic speed. The steel industry 
sprang with mushroom-like rapidity into a business em- 
ploying half a million men, and yielding the profits of 
a Golconda. The Standard Oil Company spread its pro- 
duction and sales to the ends of the earth. In every 
field of manufacture, expanding companies were brought 
together into great trusts to unify their finances and to 
stimulate their production. 

All these swift growths demanded money: money for 
new plants — money for expansion — money for working 
capital. The cry everywhere was for money — more 
money — and yet more money. Wall Street was besieged 
with a continual supphcation for capital — that priceless 
fluid to water the bursting fields of pulsing prosperities. 
It is an old law that he who has what all men seek may 
make his own terms, and in that decade Wall Street con- 
trolled the money of America. No wonder, then, that the 



74 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

financiers of Wall Street leaped to a power greater for 
a time than the power of presidents and kings. No 
wonder that heads were turned, that power was abused, 
that tyranny developed, and that finally the nation, sens- 
ing a life-and-death struggle between capitalism and 
organized government itself, arose in fear and anger, and 
put shackles on the money power that made it again the 
servant, and no longer the master, of the people. 

Let me trace briefly how this magic power was concen- 
trated. Under the old banking system, before the passage 
of the Federal Reserve Act, the need for a common bank- 
ing centre through which to "clear" inter-community and 
inter-state debits and credits, following upon the exchange 
of goods and the sale of crops, led the "country" banks 
all over the United States to maintain in some New York 
bank a considerable deposit of their funds, so that inter- 
bank transactions could be settled expeditiously and with- 
out cost by the simple device of drawing a draft against 
the New York account. The sum total of these country 
bank deposits in the metropolitan banks placed in the 
control of the New York bankers a vast reservoir of 
liquid capital. What should have been done with this 
money was to use it as the basis for financing the move- 
ment of crops in the fall and the exchange of commodities 
during the rest of the year. What frequently was done 
with it was to lend it to New York financiers for specula- 
tion in the price of crops and commodities, preventing the 
farmers and country merchants and small industrials 
from securing money at the times they needed it. Another 
use to which this reservoir of capital was put, was to lend 
it to the great industrial groups battling for supremacy in 
the fields of sugar, steel, textiles, railroads, and the like. 

But there were other reservoirs of capital, and these, 
too, centred in New York. The great insurance com- 
panies were like pools at the bottom of a great valley: 



FINANCE 75 

down the hillsides from all directions trickled the tiny 
streams of policy holders' premiums — each in itself but a 
few drops of the precious fluid but all together, when gath- 
ered in the pool, a vast golden shining mass tempting the 
eyes of the speculative builders of industry. The insur- 
ance company presidents, therefore, became, like the bank 
presidents of New York, arbiters of financial destiny, be- 
cause by their nod of favour, or disapproval, they could 
grant or withhold the golden stream of credit for which 
all men were begging. 

Thus arose a natural struggle between the banks and 
the insurance companies for the control of the finances 
of the country. If the bankers could control the insurance 
companies, they would be masters of the situation. If 
the insurance companies could control the banks, then the 
insurance company presidents would be the great men. 
It may seem odd to suggest that the insurance companies 
might have controlled the banks, but I can easily demon- 
strate that this was quite within the realms of possibility. 
One man with enough shrewdness and enough force, and 
possessed of not more than $100,000,000, could at that 
time actually have controlled the banking system of Amer- 
ica. On August 5, 1899, when I entered "Finance" 
with the organization of our company, the capitalization 
of all the banks in the Clearing House was only $58,000,- 
000, and their total undivided profits were 77 millions — 
making their entire resources 135 millions; the selling 
price of their stocks was about 200 millions. One man 
with a private fortune of $100,000,000, or McCurdy or 
Hyde controlling an insurance company with assets 
greatly in excess of that amount, or the Standard Oil 
group might have been shrewd enough to have bought a 
majority interest in all the important banks in New York, 
and this majority interest would have placed in his con- 
trol, by virtue of the system I have described above, prac- 



tl 



76 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

tically the entire banking power of America. We should 
then have had a financial octopus in the person of one 
man, with even weirder potentialities of sinister control 
of American life than the only less dangerous small group 
which actually did dominate the country financially in 
the early years of the present century. 

What actually happened was that the banking power, 
instead of being all in the hands of one man, was held 
jointly by a group of a few men who, although they 
fought incessantly and bitterly among themselves, 
nevertheless often united for common profit. It may in- 
terest the reader to be reminded of these groups and their 

leaders. 

Towering above them all in the public mind, althougl 
in fact but httle more powerful than several of the others, 
was the massive figure and threatening eye of J. Pierpont 
Morgan. Morgan ruled less by virtue of his wealth than 
by the overpowering force of his character. Men feared 
him, but they trusted him. Nearly every enterprise he 
financed turned to gold, and his leadership became the 
most impressive fact in American financial life. A close 
second to Morgan was James Stillman. Elected presi- 
dent of the National City Bank in July of 1901, Stillman, 
then forty-two years of age, heir to a profitable cotton 
brokerage business that made him financially independent, 
had partially retired from active business life, and was 
enjoying his cultivated tastes in semi-leisure. When 
Percy R. Pyne, president of the National City Bank, re- 
tired from office, and found that his two sons had no 
ambition to succeed him, he offered Stillman the presi- 
dency, and Stillman accepted. The pohcies which Still- 
man inaugurated at the National City Bank soon gave 
evidence of that genius which was shortly to place him at 
the very top of the financial world. Stillman previsioned 
the vast expansion of American business, and took steps 



FINANCE 77 

at once to share in the control of it. He bought all the 
stock of his bank that came on the market, and then he 
made it a leader in the financing of industry by attracting 
to his Board of Directors the heads of the greatest enter- 
prises in the country. These men brought to his bank 
not only money for deposit, but they brought what the 
subtle Stillman prized even more, and that was their 
knowledge and their brains. At his board meetings Still- 
man learned, at first hand, the inside facts about every 
business in the country, and this priceless information 
gave him the key to all the mysteries of financing that lay 
at the bottom of his success, and at these meetings Still- 
man had for the asking the advice and counsel of the 
shrewdest business men in the land. He once confided 
to me that by this simple device of putting these men on 
his directorate he had secured their services at the absurd 
price of about $400 a year apiece. As he expressed it: 
"These men attend a board meeting once a week, and 
receive $10 for their attendance, and for that price I am 
free to pick their brains." 

Stillman was allied with the Rockefeller family by the 
marriage of his two daughters to the two sons of William 
Rockefeller, and through this alliance gained all the 
direct and indirect advantages of a favoured position 
with the Standard Oil Company and its measures. 

Another group in the financial oligarchy was Kuhn, 
Loeb & Company, originally clothing manufacturers in 
Cincinnati, then note-brokers and finally bankers. Their 
great feat was taking over from the U. S. Government 
Receivers the Union Pacific Railroad and reorganizing it. 
They then made their famous alliance with E. H. Harri- 
man and established themselves in the first rank of Ameri- 
can financiers, through the success of this joint financing 
of the Union Pacific Railroad, one of the most profitable 
of all the feats of financial legerdemain ever accomplished. 



78 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

The trust companies entered the ranks of the financial 
oligarchs by virtue of a peculiar provision of the banking 
laws which permitted them to accept deposits and grant 
the checking privilege against them which was enjoyed 
by the banks without being required to maintain the cash 
reserve against deposits which was exacted of the banks. 
By paying interest on daily balances they attracted the 
best — the non-borrowing accounts. 

Under this anomaly of the law, the trust companies 
rose rapidly to financial eminence. Their progress was 
bitterly contested by the banks, but under the leadership 
of Frederic P. Olcott, the trust companies became so 
powerful that they were taken into the oligarchy before 
the laws were finally revised, placing them on a parity 
with the banks. Olcott, as president of the Central Trust 
Company, had a hand in nearly every one of the reorgan- 
izations of the railroads, a process through which almost 
every railroad in the country was carried during the period 
from 1878 to 1890. This experience had made Olcott an 
expert in every detail of railroad finance, and his rugged 
honesty, his utter fearlessness, his profane disregard of any 
man's importance, no matter how much it might have 
awed others, had placed him at the front as a powxr to be 
reckoned with under all conditions. 

So much for the bankers. The insurance companies 
were the other great powers in the financial oligarchy. 
Hyde of the Equitable, McCurdy of the Mutual, McCall 
of the New York Life — each of these men controlled the 
lending of hundreds of millions of dollars of money taken 
in as premiums. Before the eyes of each was laid the 
dazzling opportunity of using this power to further spec- 
ulative financing of industry with the prospect of enor- 
mous profits. Some succumbed to these temptations, and 
used some of this money, which was entrusted to them for 
the most sacred of all financial purposes — the payments 



FINANCE 79 

of death benefits to the famihes of pohcy holders — as if 
they had been their own funds to be risked in private spec- 
ulation. 

The case of Hyde is doubly appropriate for mention 
here, because he was a representative sinner in these cor- 
rupt practices, and because it was my fate to cross destinies 
at three critical moments in the life of his son and heir, 
and to be, at one of these crises, the Nemesis for his 
undoing. 

Henry B. Hyde had organized the Equitable Life 
Insurance Company years before as a private stock com- 
pany, capitalized at $100,000, of which he retained owner- 
ship of slightly more than $50,000 worth of the stock. 
The Equitable had prospered until it was one of the five 
great insurance companies. Its assets had risen to over 
$500,000,000, its surplus to an enormous sum. It was a 
moot question as to whether the stockholders or the policy 
holders owned the surplus. Though the stock was re- 
stricted to a 7 per cent, dividend, nevertheless its price 
had risen to $3,000 a share, which showed the value that 
experts placed upon opportunities for profit — whether 
legitimate or otherwise — that accrued to the possessor of 
the majority of the stock — and the control of the com- 
pany. The insurance investigation conducted by Mr. 
Hughes showed the various methods by which the men 
in control of this and other insurance companies had 
abused this power and had personally enriched themselves. 

When Henry B. Hyde died, he left to his son, James 
Hazen Hyde, his controlling interest in the Equitable. 
It would be hard to over-state the dazzling opportunity 
that now lay within reach of this boy of 24. If fate had 
given him the vision of Stillman, or the wisdom and over- 
mastering will of Morgan, or the rugged force of Olcott, 
young Hyde might easily have become dictator of financial 
America. The method of quick profits from the use of 



80 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

other people's money had been demonstrated for him by 
his father, and young Hyde himself was clever enough to 
perceive the opening that lay in acquiring control of the 
majority stock in banks and trust companies. He had 
the vision which I have described above, of the possibility 
of controHing the banking system of America by the use 
of one single fortune. 

Destiny, however, had another fate in store. Fortune 
had indeed mven Hyde the means and the vision to attain 
preeminence. But her hand withheld one essential gift 
— the gift of character. Reared to the unrestrained en- 
joyment of pleasure, Hyde had never been disciplined, 
and so had never had occasion to learn those amenities 
which, even in the most powerful characters, temper the 
masterful assertion of authority. With the pettish temper 
of a child, Hyde could not brook opposition ; his theory of 
action was the crude one of "rule or ruin." Where tact 
would have propitiated an antagonist, he tried giving 
orders. In rapid succession, he antagonized the most 
powerful men in America — men who had earned their 
spurs on the field of financial battle before he was born, 
and who were not of a temper to brook the insolence of 
a youngster merely because he had inherited a fortune. 
Their deep resentment long boiled below the surface, and 
it was only when Hyde tried to wi*est from the presidency 
and transfer to the vice-presidency, which he was then 
occupying, the main executive powers of the company 
that the opposition to him became organized. President 
Alexander retained Bainbridge Colby, who was then in 
partnership with his son, and also Frank Piatt. The 
latter by using the agents of the United States Express 
Company, of which his father was president, secured the 
proxies of over 90,000 policy holders. They then tried to 
secure prominent and trusted men who would act as a 
committee for the policy holders to force an investigation 



FINANCE 81 

of the management of the company. This task they found 
more difficult. Several times they thought they had their 
committee completed when Hyde and his associates ex- 
erted such pressure that these men withdrew their consent 
to serve. Finally, a group of them put this situation up 
to me. They pointed out that I owed a duty to the public 
to clear up this lamentable misuse of the public's funds. 

I debated long whether I had a right to do this service. 
For myself, personally, I had no fear of Hyde, but as 
president of a trust company, I had the interests of my 
stockholders and depositors to consider. To resolve my 
perplexities, I brought the matter up at a board meeting. 
I wanted to accept, but I felt it my duty to explain 
the situation to my directors, and I told them that if they 
felt I was jeopardizing their interests, I would resign 
from the Trust Company, and serve on the committee. 
Olcott resolved the question. With characteristic honesty 
and force, he said: "If you feel that way, stay and serve, 
and let whoever deserves, be hurt." 

I informed the attorneys of the committee of my in- 
clination, but told them I would not serve until they had 
submitted to me the evidence they possessed. It was an 
interesting evening that Frank Piatt and Bainbridge 
Colby spent in my library. They brought a satchel full 
of documents, and in a short time convinced me that their 
case against Hyde was complete. They were very anxious 
to have me pledge myself to stay to the end, which was to 
be the displacement of Hyde, and I exacted from them a 
similar promise, so that we came to an understanding that 
this was to be a fight to the finish. 

With the Dreyfus trial fresh in my mind, I urged Colby 
that he should be the man who would Americanize the 
"J'accuse" and charge Hyde with these various malfeas- 
ances against the policy holders. 

A few davs later, :mV. Stillman called and told me that 



82 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

he wanted to warn me to be very cautious in my activ- 
ities of this pohcy holders' committee ; that pubhc opinion 
was so excited and might easily be fanned to fever heat if 
the conditions in the Equitable were published; and that 
the people might demand investigations of all financial 
institutions, and thereby create a panic. He also asked 
me to discuss the matter with Mr. E. H. Harriman. I 
had no objection to doing so, and a conference was ar- 
ranged. Harriman asked me what the committee wanted, 
and I told him that although Hyde owned a majority of 
the stock, the assets belonged to the policy holders; and 
that they had enough accusations which would condemn 
him before any court; and that the committee demanded 
the removal of Hyde and control of the executive com- 
mittee which controlled the company. I told him that it 
would be much better for them to make terms with us, 
who were reasonable men, than to try to persuade any 
of our committee to compromise, because the proxies 
we had would be taken from us and given to people who 
would see that justice would be done. He saw the force 
of my argument and suggested my meeting Mr. Elihu 
Root. We met the next day and went over the whole 
situation. Mr. Root laid great stress on the fact that 
it was unheard of to displace a man owning the majority 
of the stock of a company. On behalf of the policy holders, 
I told Mr. Root that we were going to arouse public 
opinion against the impropriety of having the funds of 
widows and orphans subjected to the whims and fancies of 
a quasi-irresponsible young man, and I also referred to the 
grave danger that the whole financial fabric was being 
exposed to by permitting the vast power that went with 
the control of the Equitable and its subsidiary companies, 
to pass by inheritance, and not by election. 

It finally was arranged that no one was to be placed on 
the executive committee who was personally objectionable 



FINANCE 83 

to Hyde. The new directors were not to represent any 
faction, but all the policy holders. Thus we got control 
of the board and the policy holders were allowed to elect 
a majority of the executive committee and Mr. Hyde's 
control was wrested from him. 

Thus, my action in standing fast with the committee of 
Equitable policy holders, demanding their rights, was an 
essential prelude to the famous life insurance investiga- 
tion of 1905. The success of that investigation, once it 
got under way, is, of course, to the eternal credit of 
Charles Evans Hughes. His masterly grasp of the in- 
tricacies of the whole situation; his extraordinarily logical 
mind which enabled him to bring out the testimony in 
such a way as to build up an overwhelming and complete 
sense of the right and wrong of the matter, made his 
conduct of this investigation one of the most brilliant 
performances in the history of American law, and placed 
Mr. Hughes in the front rank of public servants. My 
own testimony at the investigation was useful in estab- 
lishing confirmatory evidence of the corrupt manner in 
which life insurance moneys were used, as evidenced in the 
purchase, by Mr. McCurdy, of stock in other companies 
with policy holders' money, but to the personal profit of 
the officers of the Mutual instead of to the Mutual itself. 
The outcome of the whole investigation is, of course, 
familiar to the public. It resulted in the enactment of 
laws which made these corrupt practices impossible, and 
thereby took the insurance company funds out of the 
speculative and promoting fields of American finance. 

The other needed reform — to clip the power of the 
New York bankers to control the credit resources of the 
country — was delayed until, under the compulsion of 
Woodrow Wilson's leadership, the Federal Reserve Act 
was passed, and the power of Wall Street over credit for 
ever crushed. That Act democratized credit, and made 



84 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

it impossible for any man, or group of men, to concentrate 
and control it. 

Young Hyde was shorn of his glory. He was com- 
pelled to sell his majority of ownership in the Equitable 
for two and one half million dollars — whereas but a few 
years before I had been authorized by James Stillman to 
offer him ten milHon dollars for the control of the Equit- 
able and its connections — and to remove himself from all 
authority in its affairs, and from all influence upon finance 
in general. He retired to that luxurious obscurity which 
was his natural level. Disgusted with America, which 
did not "appreciate" him, he returned to France where 
he had already spent several years, and there devoted him- 
self to a life of pleasure and of mild intellectual avocations. 

I did not see him again until 1917 when the United 
States had entered the World War, and I was visiting 
Paris. This third encounter with young Hyde had in 
it the dramatic elements of a Greek comedy. Later in 
this book, I describe how I made Hyde vice-president 
of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and facilitated his 
ambition to become a social leader in New York. 
Unappreciative of this service I had rendered him, and 
eager for yet greater social opportunities, Hyde had 
not been content to await the natural termination of 
my directorship, and had had the impudence to ask me 
to resign in favour of one of his friends. I had indig- 
nantly refused this preposterous request, and served out 
my term of office. In the insurance investigation there 
had been, therefore, a certain element of poetic justice 
in my being the instrument in the hand of destiny to 
give the little essential fillip to the events that caused 
his headlong fall from financial eminence. Our meet- 
ing in Paris in 1917 supplied the final touch of classic 
irony. There, Hyde, out of touch with his native land, 
somewhat chastened by contemplation of his abrupt fall 



FINANCE 85 

from financial heights, found himself almost a man with- 
out a country in the midst of the World War, unahle to 
gratify his ambition to be always in style — and now the 
style was to be in the military uniform of one's country. 

I visited France soon after the entrance of America 
into that conflict, and during a brief interval of rest at 
Aix-les-Bains, I chanced upon John G. A. Leishmann 
and his vivacious daughter, who was Hyde's wife. She 
had heard of my political association with President 
Wilson, but evidently she had forgotten, or was unaware 
of, my part in the financial downfall of her husband. She 
confided to me young Hyde's and her own unhappiness 
that he had no active part in the service of his country, 
and begged me to use my influence to obtain for him some 
position in the American service where he could do his 
bit. I promised to do what I could. 

Upon my return to Paris, young Hyde himself called 
upon me with words of warm appreciation, both that I 
had been willing to overlook our late unpleasantness, and 
that I had not mentioned its existence to his wife. He 
was anxious to serve, and almost pathetically eager to con- 
vince me that he could serve. He had been refused a 
position on General Pershing's staff, and wanted me to 
secure for him a commission from the American Red 
Cross. He declared that he could obtain for me or others 
an immediate audience from any person in the French 
Government, no matter how exalted, and pointed out that 
by virtue of this capacity he could be of indispensable 
service. He wished me to name any French official whom 
I cared to meet. I said I should like very much to meet 
M. Painleve informally, and Hyde thereupon, hardly 
waiting to bid me good-bye, hastened away to make the 
appointment. He easily made good his boast, so that two 
days later I had dinner at Hyde's house, and had a most 
interesting conversation with Painleve. I was so im- 



86 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

pressed with Hyde's earnestness and with the possibihties 
of usefulness that lay in his remarkable affiliations with 
the best French society, that I did intercede for him with 
Major Murphy and Major Perkins, the heads of the Red 
Cross, and prevailed upon them to make him a uniformed 
officer. He was attached to the Paris headquarters of 
our Red Cross work in France, and, I was afterward 
told, rendered very useful service. 

As I stated at the beginning of this chapter, the object 
of the formation of the Central Realty Bond & Trust 
Company was to provide an accumulation of capital for 
the purpose of dealing in real estate on a large scale. I 
shall describe a few of the company's transactions to illus- 
trate how the corporate form of operation gave wider 
scope than was possible to an individual operator. One 
of our first transactions illustrates this very point. 

While looking for temporary quarters to house the com- 
pany, Mr. Frederick M. Hilton, the present head of 
William A. White & Sons, offered me the space in Boreel 
Building that had just been vacated by the German 
American Fire Insurance Company. Mr. Hilton told 
me that the Boreel heirs were receiving a return of less 
than 3 per cent, on the tax value of their property, 
and were facing a substantial diminution of even this 
small income now that these insurance offices had been 
thrown upon their hands. I said to him: "Why not in- 
quire whether these heirs will sell the property for 
$2,000,000?" He was amazed when he found that out of 
an expected rental of $15,000 a year there might evolve a 
sale of the entire property. I immediately communicated 
this fact to Grant who authorized me to purchase the prop- 
erty without consulting the Executive Committee, and 
said that both Olcott and he would each take one third and 
I could take one third, if the Executive Committee failed 
to ratify it. We secured the property for $2,050,000. Mr. 



FINANCE 87 

Prescott Hall Butler represented the heirs in this trans- 
action and when I handed him the check for $50,000, 
which was paid on account of the contract, he told me that 
he intended to deposit it with a trust company until the 
deal was completed. I said why not with us, which he 
agreed to do, so that we thus owned the property without 
having parted with the possession of a single dollar. The 
fact that we were both a real estate operating company 
and a trust company enabled us to repeat this kind of 
operation frequently. 

When Mr. Black of the Fuller Construction Company 
heard of our purchase, he immediately bought our con- 
tract, and gave us a profit of 10 per cent., so that we 
secured temporary quarters and made $205,000 without 
losing the use of any of our funds. 

Other large transactions followed in rapid succession. 
Among the most interesting of these was the collecting 
of the plots that constitute the present site of the Broad 
Exchange Building, directly opposite the Stock Ex- 
change; the purchase of the Knox Building at the corner 
of Fortieth Street and Fifth Avenue; and my joining in 
the purchase of the Plaza Hotel, by means of a brief 
telephone conversation, for $3,000,000. 

In 1904, as the Subway neared completion, I was aston- 
ished to find that there had been no activity in real estate 
in anticipation of the benefits that would accrue from the 
increased transportation facilities in the upper part of 
New York and the Bronx. I therefore enlisted the as- 
sistance of my nephew, Robert E. Simon, and of J. Clar- 
ence Davies, and organized what was dubbed by some 
of the real estate operators the "Subway Boom." On 
behalf of the company and some associates, we purchased 
all the big plots that abutted the various transit lines, and 
could be secured at reasonable prices. In a period of 
ninety days we purchased in the Bronx, in the Dyckman 



88 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

district, in Washington Heights, and Fort George, about 
2,500 lots which were eventually sold for $9,000,000. 

In 1905, when I reahzed that a cessation of prosperity 
and the necessary declining market that would follow 
was imminent, I called on Mr. Olcott and asked him 
whether our young company could rely upon the assist- 
ance of the Central Trust Company, with whom we kept 
our largest account; he told me that if a panic such as I 
feared should come everybody would have to look out 
for himself; that if my accounts and securities would 
justify his making a loan at 6 per cent, he would do so, 
but as far as his depositing with our company a few 
million dollars, as I had suggested, he would not consider 
it. I went right next door to Mr. Stillman, and asked him 
a similar question, first telling him the attitude INIr. Olcott 
had taken. Mr. Stillman said I was but one of the many 
customers of his bank ; his holdings in my company were 
relatively small ; that the new, unseasoned financial institu- 
tions would be the first to suffer in case the public com- 
menced to doubt the stability of the financial institutions. 
"Although it is known that you have a splendid board of 
directors, and have the good will of some of the big inter- 
ests like the Mutual Life and the Central Trust Company, 
and my institution also, still it is well known that none of 
us control your institution and are, therefore, not re- 
sponsible for it. You do not belong to any one, but I am 
willing to see you through, no matter what happens." 

During the interview, I almost felt that the Stillman 
collar was slipping around my neck and shook myself to 
see if I was free, and I made up my mind that rather than 
wear any one's collar, I would go out of business. I de- 
liberated at some length for some days, and then had a 
long conference with Mr. Grant who, for the first time 
since our close connection, was really annoyed at the stand 
I took. He felt that our company was destined to 



FINANCE 89 

become one of the important independent financial insti- 
tutions downtown and that my fears of a catastrophe 
were exaggerated and that we should risk it, playing the 
game to the finish. When I explained to him that I had 
no desire to quit personally, but to dispose of the company 
as a whole, either by consolidation or liquidation, he co- 
operated with me faithfully, as heretofore. 

We merged the company into the Lawyers' Title In- 
surance Company at a price which enabled us to pay our 
stockholders $550 in cash and one half share of Lawyers' 
Title Stock for every share they owned in our company. 

I personally purchased from the company all the real 
estate that it then owned. 

Having thus returned to the real estate business, only 
on a much larger scale than I had ever operated before, 
I took my nephew, Robert E. Simon, into partnership, 
and formed the Henry INIorgenthau Company. This 
company then developed all the properties I had left in 
the Bronx, and built and financed housings for thousands 
of people in that section, and also on Washington Heights, 
and in Fort George at One Hundred and Ninetieth 
Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. 

My venture into the trust company field led me ulti- 
mately into an interest in a kind of business I had never 
before studied. One day my friend, Mr. Charles Strauss, 
who had influenced many of his clients and friends 
to open accounts with the Trust Companj^ came to my 
office and asked me whether we w^ould make a loan to 
one of his clients who, he declared, was ready to put up as 
collateral some of the original Standard Oil Company 
stock. I told him unhesitatingly that we would do so. 

He said: "Now, Henry, don't speak so fast. Before 
you definitely commit yourself, I understand trust com- 
panies are not making loans on an exclusively industrial 
collateral." I told him that I knew how my board felt 



90 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

about Standard Oil which was then selling at about $180 
a share, and to convince him that I was authorized I told 
him that if his friend had any doubts, I would make him 
a time loan of six months. Mr. Strauss brought in Mr. 
John T. Underwood, the president of the Underwood 
Typewriter Company. 

Strauss told me at the time that this transaction might 
lead to other business. A few years afterward, Strauss 
came to see me and told me that Underwood required ad- 
ditional money to proceed with his enterprise. He then 
told me how Underwood had come to this country from 
England to represent his father's business — the John 
Underwood Company, manufacturers of inks; how he 
had started business at 'No. 30 Vesey Street; and how, 
shortly after typewriters had been introduced, had manu- 
factured supplies for them, carbon paper, ribbons, etc., 
and built up a large and profitable business. His trans- 
actions were very largely with the then existing type- 
writer companies, the Remington and Smith Premier. 
Shortly after the Union Typewriter Company had been 
started, these people notified Underwood that they would 
themselves go into the typewriter supply business. This 
induced Underwood to go into the^typewriter business and 
to manufacture the first visible typewriter. 

In 1901, when they came to me, he had invested in the 
enterprise about $950,000, and as he wanted to buy a new 
factory in Hartford, and increase his facilities, he wanted 
to secure an additional capital of $500,000 and that was 
the proposition that Strauss had suggested to me. We 
discussed the matter, and I proposed that he rearrange 
his capitalization; sell $500,000 of 6 per cent. First Pre- 
ferred stock; have issued to himself, Strauss, and others 
who had advanced the $950,000, 'Second Preferred of 
$1,000,000; and that be issue $2,000,000 Common stock, 
of which he could give the First Preferred stockholders 



FINANCE 91 

$500,000. Messrs. Hugh J. Grant and James M. 
Jarvie of the Executive Committee of the Trust Company 
subsequently joined me in the dehberations, and in the 
course thereof Mr. Underwood told us that the Trust 
had offered him $2,000,000 for his proposition. Jarvie 
said to him: "You are a bachelor, you have no under- 
study. You have no one dependent upon you. Your 
enterprise is a one-man enterprise, and much as I would 
like to go into this matter with you, I strongly recommend 
that you sell to the Trust." 

Jarvie talked so convincingly that Underwood again 
opened negotiations with the Trust. They renewed their 
offer, but insisted upon making their payments in install- 
ments, which, when analyzed, practically meant that they 
would pay Underwood largely, if not entirely, out of his 
own profits. Underwood and Strauss rebelled at that 
and determined to continue their enterprise. 

It was then February, 1903, and the panic of that year 
was imminent, and Grant and Jarvie declined to go into 
anything new. It rather discouraged me, but I took a 
small subscription of the First Preferred stock, more out 
of compliment to Strauss and Underwood than for the 
sake of investment.' St.rauss made a proposition to me, 
saying that they desired to have me on the Board of Direc- 
tors, and if I would agree to serve for five years, they 
wouM give me $30,000 of Common stock for nothing. I 
consented to do so upon one condition, that all meetings 
would have to be held at the Trust Company office, as I 
did not wish to take the time it would require for me to 
go up to their office. They promptly accepted my con- 
dition, as they said they had no meeting room and, in 
fact, they considered this, instead of being a condition, an 
accommodation. I attended the directors' meetings pretty 
regularly until 1909, when at one of the meetings I 
was very much gratified to see that during the current 



92 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

month, the Company had earned more than the $90,000, 
their fixed charges on the First and Second Preferred 
stock for the entire year. I invited Underwood and 
Strauss to lunch with me, and I then told them that I had 
been a director now for six years, and the time had arrived 
when I could be useful in creating a market for the stock, 
which was not being dealt in at all. I asked them whether 
they would be willing to sell me one half of their holdings, 
and I would undertake to popularize the stock. Mr. 
Underwood gave me an option in November, 1909, to pur- 
chase from him 40 per cent, of the Common stock. He 
gave this option without any payment down. I invited Mr. 
Jacob Wertheim to join me and when I gave him all the 
facts that I had learned while acting as director for years 
— he found them so convincing that he waived making an 
investigation and proposed that we confine the matter 
entirely to ourselves — he offered to finance the operation 
to any extent that I was unable to do. I accepted this on 
condition that he would give his son Maurice, who had 
married my daughter Alma, an interest in his half. He 
consented and I gave my son an interest in my share. After 
we had made this arrangement, we decided that it would 
be better for Underwood and the other stockholders of 
the enterprise that, instead of creating a market for the 
then existing shares, we should create a new issue of 
$5,000,000 of Preferred stock, dispose of it to the public, 
and with the proceeds redeem the First and Second Pre- 
ferred, and also the outstanding Common stock, pay off 
the notes then outstanding, and have enough cash left 
to more than double the facilities of the Company at 
Hartford. When I made the suggestion to Underwood, 
he said he would not entertain it until I had consum- 
mated my option. We did this promptly, and then re- 
financed the Company. It was one of the first compan- 
ies, if not the very first, that sold its Preferred stock to 



FINANCE 93 

the bankers without giving them, or their purchasers, 
any of the Common stock as a bonus. My experience 
as president of the Central Realty Trust Company had 
taught me that this could be done, and I insisted upon 
trying it, so that when we finished with the entire opera- 
tion, Wertheim and I and our sons were owners of very 
substantial amounts of the Common stock at a very mod- 
erate price. Underwood and Strauss and the other Pre- 
ferred and Common stockholders of the Company were 
all, and still are, pleased with the refinancing, as every- 
body concerned was benefitted by the operation. 

In the meantime, the Underwood Company has com- 
pletely outstripped all the other companies, and Under- 
wood has had the satisfaction of metamorphosing from the 
discharged purveyor of supplies to the Remington and 
other typewriter companies, into the unquestioned, out- 
standing leader of the typewriter business, and he is still 
the same modest, energetic, tireless executive that he was 
in 1903. It has been no small satisfaction for all of us 
to see the steady, healthy growth of this infant into the 
magnificent giant that it is to-day, and some of the credit 
is due to our most efficient superintendent, Mr. Charles A. 
Rice. 

In 1919, when the Underwood commenced to manufac- 
ture the portable machines, I asked Mr. Underwood to 
give me No. 1, so that I could present it to President 
Wilson, as I was about to go to Europe, and expected to 
see him in Paris. I sent it to the President, and a few 
days thereafter I met INIiss Benham, Mrs. Wilson's secre- 
tary, and she told me that unintentionally I had almost 
caused a little quarrel between the Presidential couple, 
and when I inquired how, she told me that Mrs. Wilson 
had annexed the Underwood machine over the President's 
protest. 



CHAPTER VI 

SOCIAL SERVICE 

DURING all these years of which I have heen 
writing my spirit was in a never-ceasing conflict 
with itself, a conflict between idealism and ma- 
terialism. My boyish imagination had been fired with a 
vision of a life of unselfish devotion to the welfare of 
others, and in an earlier chapter I have described the 
influence of religious and ethical teachings upon my 
character and activities. But the necessity of earning a 
livelihood had early thrust me into the arena of business. 
Once there, I became absorbed in money-making. It was 
a fascinating game. It challenged all my powers of 
brain and will to hold my own and forge ahead in the 
fierce competition of my fellows. I lived business, ate 
business, dreamed business. There came a time when 
the most interesting lectures, the finest theatrical per- 
formances, or even the best staged operas could not hold 
my entire attention. My schemes constantly intruded 
themselves upon my consciousness and would absorb the 
mentality that was required for me to understand and 
rejoice with what was going on. As usual, as with all 
other business men, the day's work had practically ab- 
sorbed my day's supply of vitality. I had not the power 
to shake off this exacting task-master. 

But, though business could conquer pleasure, it could 
not conquer idealism; and idealism resorted to similar 
tactics as business. It asserted itself during business 
hours, and again and again demanded opportunities to 

94 



SOCIAL SERVICE 95 

exercise itself. I shall now try to tell how it successfully 
resisted complete annihilation. 

When, in 1876, Felix Adler returned from his studies 
as a rabbi in Europe, and Temple Emanu-El — the most 
important Jewish congregation in the United States — 
was ready to welcome him to its pulpit, he found that it 
would not coincide with his views to follow in the foot- 
steps of his father, who had been connected with that 
synagogue for forty years. The son's researches had led 
him to the conclusion that forms, ceremonies, and customs 
did not make a religion when pursued in new and entirely 
different surroundings. Dr. Adler hoped that the time 
had come when the real spiritual essentials of the Jewish 
religion — its system of ethics — could be developed, ap- 
preciated, and enforced, and that the American Jews could 
adjust themselves to the land in which they were living 
and drop all that they had had to adhere to in Ghettoized 
Europe. He came back filled with an enthusiastic desire 
to remedy the glaring evils, not only of the Jews, but of 
the entire community : he could diagnose our ills and pre- 
scribe a remedy. 

This appeal found a wonderful response amongst the 
flower of the reformed Jews and some Christians of New 
York, who formed the Society for Ethical Culture, of 
which the then leading Jew of America, Joseph Seligman, 
was elected president. All these felt the need of re- 
adjustment to fit their new surroundings. Some of those 
religious habits were imposed upon them while their an- 
cestors were suppressed people. Few, if any, would 
adopt Christianity, but all were ready to subscribe to the 
aims of a society which are most clearly stated in their 
present invitation to members: 

Our Society is distinctly a religious body, interpreting the word 
"religion" to mean fervent devotion to the highest moral ends. But 



96 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

toward religion as a confession of faith in things superhuman, the 
attitude of our Society is neutral. Neither acceptance nor denial of 
any theological doctrine disqualifies for membership. 

In short, the Jews in America very seriously wanted 
to complete their Americanization. They were honestly 
striving for education, for refinement, for community and 
public service, for devotion to art, music, and culture. 
Welcome, then, this prophet Adler — this great reformer! 
His sterling qualities as a thinker; his wonderful resource- 
fulness; his pure and lofty private life, and his totally 
uncompromising attitude toward evil, secured him the 
admiration of all those who had in their own modest way 
been hopelessly striving to reach this plane. Adler by in- 
heritance and by studying the older prophets had mingled 
that knowledge with the wisdom of the present day. 
Here was pure ethics unencumbered by religious form, 
the way Emerson taught it, the way Garrison and Lincoln 
practised it — and this man was trying to direct this 
current, which led away from the old-fashioned religion 
into a new field tending toward agnosticism and atheism, 
and bring it, instead, into this new field of ethics. His 
sincerity could not be doubted. He had voluntarily 
abandoned an honourable and care-free career that had 
been offered him by Temple Emanu-El, and like a modern 
Moses had undertaken the harassing and difficult task of 
satisfying the unexpressed yearnings of these people, who 
were discontented with the existing requirements of their 
religion and had hopelessly sought for moral guidance. 

I was among Adler's earliest adherents. When he or- 
ganized his United Relief Work, I was one of its directors ; 
I participated in his Cherry Street experiment in model 
tenements — the first in America, which eventually brought 
about legislation to do away with the dark rooms of 
which there were over fifty thousand in New York City 



SOCIAL SERVICE 97 

alone, and I assisted in the establishment of the first 
Ethical Culture School, which was started in Fifty-fourth 
Street, near Sixth Avenue, and was chairman of the Site 
Committee that secured the present location on Central 
Park West from Sixty-third to Sixty-fourth streets. 

Above all, however, I treasure the fond remembrance 
of having been a member of the "Union for Higher Life" 
— an organization of a few of Adler's devotees. He 
always maintained that, as every man expected purity 
from his wife, it was his duty to enter the marriage 
state in the same condition, and the members of this 
"Union" pledged themselves to celibacy during bachelor- 
hood. We met every week at the Sherwood Studio, 
where he then lived. We read Lange's "Arbeiter- 
Frage," and studied the Labour question. We discussed 
the problems of business and professional men. I notice 
in my diary of April 24, '82, that we debated the sim- 
plicity of dress and the follies of extravagance. Then, 
as Dr. Adler wanted us to feel that we were doing some- 
thing definitely altruistic, the members of the Union 
jointly adopted eight children; some of them were 
half-orphans, and some had parents who could not support 
them properly ; we employed a matron and hired a flat for 
her on the corner of Forty-fifth Street and Eighth 
Avenue. 

We had considered starting a cooperative community 
for ourselves, and Adler and I devoted some time looking 
at various properties. Our intention was to have separate 
living quarters with a joint kindergarten and a joint 
kitchen, thereby avoiding duplication of menial labour. 
This would have enabled our wives to devote more of their 
time to community work. It was to be an urban Brook 
Farm. Already having big ideas about real estate, I 
suggested and investigated the Leake and Watts Orphan 
Asylum property, now occupied by the Cathedral of St. 



98 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

John the Divine! It could then have been bought for 
about $3,000 a lot. Adler, however, considered it too 
inaccessible, as it could only be reached by the Eighth 
Avenue street car, and so the idea was abandoned. 

As many of my close friends were not adherents of 
Professor Adler, and we wanted to share our intellectual 
developments and efforts, we organized the Emerson So- 
ciety; and under the guidance of my brother Julius who 
had just received his degree of Doctor of Philosophy at 
Leipzig, we not only read, but thoroughly studied, a 
number of Emerson's essays. I was chagrined to find 
that not only the college-bred men of our group, but also 
many of the girls were much better Enghsh scholars than 
I, so I determined to secure lessons from the best author- 
ity on English at that time. Richard Grant White, the 
annotator of Shakespeare and the author of "Words and 
their Uses," was universally recognized as such, but I was 
told by people whom I consulted that it was useless to 
communicate with him as he undoubtedly would feel him- 
self above giving private lessons. Nevertheless I wrote 
him for an interview, stating my age, vocation, and desire, 
and he answered: 

"It is possible that I may be able to give you the assist- 
ance you seek in your praiseworthy plan. I will see you 
with pleasure." 

The interview was successful. Mr. White undertook 
to give us lessons in the origin and growth of language, 
nor shall I ever forget the delight of that instruction. We 
used to meet in his apartment on Stuyvesant Square, the 
home of an artist and scholar, and his talks on the develop- 
ment of tongues from the Aryan to our modern English — 
his readings from the classics in that beautiful, cultivated 
voice of his with its perfect enunciation — are still fresh in 
my memory. 

Two of my friends had joined me and when I was no 



SOCIAL SERVICE 99 

longer contented to meet Josephine Sykes merely as a 
member of the Emerson Club, and therefore persuaded 
her to start a little club of our own, she joined the 
class. 

Shortly after the death of Maurice Grau in 1902, my 
wife and I, calling on Mrs. Josephine Bonne, found the 
Conrieds there, and Conried told us that he was looking 
for fourteen men whom he could get to join him in sub- 
scribing the $150,000 required to secure the lease and 
management of the Metropolitan Opera House, and as 
I was one that Mrs. Bonne had suggested, he, with great 
earnestness, backed up by his fine dramatic talent, pleaded 
his cause. He told us of his histrionic training in the 
Burg Theatre at Vienna, and how his youthful ardour 
for the stage was permanently influenced by the high 
artistic ideals prevailing there. 

"When I came to America," he said, "I hoped the 
prosperous Germans and Jews would endow a similar 
institution here, and so I started tlie Irving Place Theatre. 
What has happened? Instead of receiving the support I 
expected, I have had to resort to all kinds of devices. I 
have become a play broker, secured the American rights 
to current European productions, demonstrating their 
possibilities to the American managers, and selling them 
when I could, so that the Irving Place Theatre has really 
become only a laboratory or testing room. It has never 
paid for itself, and I have had to supplement my brokerage 
profits by securing Herr Ballin's help in founding the 
Ocean Comfort Company which rents steamer chairs to 
transatlantic travellers! Have I put my small profits 
in my own pocket? No, I have poured them back into 
the Irving Place Theatre, still hoping to attract the sup- 
port which would give me a chance to demonstrate my 
ideals. Here is a short-cut, here is a chance for me to 
realize all these ideals without having to risk my own or 



100 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

my friends' money. At last my opportunity has come, 
and I ask you to help me secure this lease." 

I doubt if he ever played any role more earnestly or 
with greater sincerity. Nobody could have resisted him, 
and I gracefully surrendered and asked him: 

"What progress have you made? What men have you 

secured?" 

He answered: "Jacob H. Schiff, Ernest Thahnan, 
Daniel Guggenheim, Randolph Guggenheimer, and 
Henry R. Ickelheimer." All of these men were of the 
highest class, thoroughly cultured, and lovers of music, 
but knowing as I did the management of the Metro- 
politan Opera House, I jokingly said to Conried: 

"If you could only secure a Mr. Hochheimer and a Mr. 
Niersteiner you would have a complete wine list, but you 
could never secure the opera house through it." 

He saw the point at once, and asked what I would 
suggest. I answered him: 

"I have conceived a plan while sitting here, but to 
carry it out I must have an absolutely free hand as to 
who are to be your associates. I shall see Messrs. A. D. 
Juilliard and George G. Haven, who have the final say 
in the matter, on Tuesday, and can tell you that evening 
whether I can accomplish anything or not." 

Conried assented. I at once proceeded to carry out my 
plan to interest the younger social leaders and communi- 
cated with Mr. James Hazen Hyde. He was most fa- 
vourably impressed, and suggested that he and I obh- 
gate ourselves for $75,000 each, secure the lease, and then 
select our associates. We did so, obtained the lease, and 
then invited the following to make up the Board of 
Directors of the Conried Metropolitan Opera Company : 
Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Henry Rogers Winthrop, H. P. 
Whitney, Robert Goelet, R. H. McCurdy, Jacob H. 
Schiff, Clarence H. Mackay, George J. Gould, Otto H. 



SOCIAL SERVICE 101 

Kahn, J. Henry Smith, Eliot Gregory, Bainbridge Colby, 
and William H. INIcIntyre. Heinrich Conried was elected 
president and Hyde and myself vice-presidents. Suc- 
cess was assured from the first. Conried took hold of 
the management with energy and wonderful resourceful- 
ness that promptly won him the admiration of the direc- 
tors of both companies. 

He completely changed the interior of the Opera House, 
put in a new ceiling, new chandelier, arranged the proper 
illumination of the boxes, and the most important im- 
provement of all being the discarding of the old-fashioned 
drop curtain and replacing it with one divided in the 
centre, making it unnecessary for the popular stars, when 
answering repeated curtain-calls, to walk all the way 
across the stage from one side to the other of the pro- 
scenium arch. He unsuccessfully fought the demand 
of the boxholders for the famous horseshoe to be kept 
illuminated all through the performance, and finally com- 
promised by putting red shades over the lights. 

One week-end INIr. and INIrs. Conried spent with us 
at Elberon. They came heavily laden. Mrs. Conried 
cautiously^ carried a circular bundle of discs, and her 
husband bore what looked like a monster cornucopia, while 
their son was bending under the weight of a big box. A 
very few minutes after they had entered the house we 
were spellbound by "Elisir d'Amore," sung by the finest 
tenor voice. We and our children all rushed out to the 
room from whence the singing came. We waited until 
it was finished and rivalled each other with our applause. 
Conried, the impresario, foreseeing in our unlimited ap- 
plause the success of his future tenor, benignly smiled 
and explained to us: ' 

"This is the great Caruso — a man that is in Buenos 
Aires just now. Grau engaged him, and it was these 
records that induced me to assume the contract." 



102 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Conried startled us once more during that same week- 
end by confiding to us that he possessed the complete score 
of "Parsifal." He said: 

"I shall produce it this winter." 

We were amazed at this proposition, particularly my 
wife, who reminded Conried that when she was at Bayreuth 
she was informed that both Richard Wagner and his 
widow had steadfastly withstood all propositions to pro- 
duce "Parsifal" — the chief attraction of its musical festi- 
vals — on any other stage. I feared that many Wagner- 
ians would condemn the production as a sacrilege. 

Conried waived aside the objections and said: 

"Years ago I told Frau Casimir Wagner that some day 
I would produce 'Parsifal' in America. She ridiculed me. 
Here's my chance. I will win the approbation of thou- 
sands who have been yearning to hear this opera and who 
will never get to Bayreuth." 

From that day on, he kept me informed of his progress. 
We were together in Vienna when he chose the costumes 
for the "flower-maidens"; I visited with him the studio 
where the revolving curtain was being painted; in Amer- 
ica, my wife and I attended many of the rehearsals. 

His real troubles began as he approached the day of 
production. The composer's widow tried to enjoin him 
from making the production; for fear of offending her, 
Mottl refused to conduct the orchestra; unlimited abuse 
was showered on the producer through the press; certain 
clergymen denounced the opera as blasphemous; some 
singers revolted; and, to cap the climax, there came a 
warning that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Children would stop the appearance of the boys who were 
to sing in the choruses. 

Conried's patience and optimism were inexhaustible. 
He met every rebuff squarely and surmounted every bar- 
rier. He won in the courts. The press attacks and the 



SOCIAL SERVICE 103 

pulpit onslaughts only furnished publicity; he found 
other singers to take the place of the rebels, and so, as the 
event proved, in conferring the leadership of the orchestra 
on Hertz, he opened a brilliant career for an excellent 
conductor until then little known in America. As for 
the public response, the demand for seats was unpar- 
alleled, even in MetropoHtan history: the directors were 
all besieged by applications, and I alone made over a hun- 
dred people happy by securing seats for them. 

Nevertheless, on the eve of the first production every- 
thing within the Opera House seemed in utter chaos. We 
were there until two o'clock in the morning and beheld a 
never-to-be-forgotten sight. The famous Munich stage 
manager Lautenschlager, imported for this special per- 
formance, was then still rehearsing raising and lowering 
the drops for Kundry's big scene, and supernumeraries 
were scurrying about answering the conflicting demands 
of their directors; weary stage carpenters and "hands" 
were lying in the wings snatching such minutes of sleep as 
were possible, while high up in the stage lofts were stowed 
away the chorus boys to keep them out of the clutches of 
the S.P.C.C. To the onlooker, professional or amateur — 
to everybody except the confident Conried — there seemed 
nothing but disaster ahead. The brilliant success that 
evolved is too much a matter of operatic history to require 
recounting here. 

Conried had always drawn unsparingly on his reserves 
of energy and resistance, and there came at last a moment 
when those reserves were exhausted. An unpleasant 
episode, involving not himself, but one of his company, 
enlisted all his eff'orts. At its conclusion, he was met with 
a piece of bad news: Dr. Holbrook Curtis told him that 
he feared that a growth which had just appeared in the 
throat of Caruso would prevent this, now his particular 
star, from singing during the coming season and might 



104 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

end his career altogether. Conried went from the doctor's 
office to the Opera House to watch an important, long- 
drawn-out rehearsal. Shortly thereafter he had a break- 
down from which he never recovered. 

When he died, his widow and son requested me to ar- 
range the funeral, and readily adopted my suggestion 
that as Heinrich Conried's greatest success had been won 
in the Metropolitan Opera House, so his obsequies should 
be held there as Anton Seidl's had been ten years before. 
I knew that Conried had not been connected with any 
synagogue, but I asked whether he had mentioned a pref- 
erence. 

"None," said his son. 

Being president of the Free Synagogue, I requested 
Rabbi Wise to officiate. I communicated with the direc- 
tors of the Conried Opera Company, who consented to 
the plan, and every branch of the organization from the 
orchestra to the scene-shifters volunteered to help. 

It was an event which none who witnessed it will ever 
forget. The proscenium arch was hung with black, and 
the "set" was the mediaeval interior used in the third act 
of "Lucia." In the centre was the great catafalque, its 
outlines almost obscured by masses of flowers — lilies, 
roses, orchids, literally by tens of thousands — flanked by 
two Hebrew candelabra, surmounted by the bust of the 
impresario that had been presented to him, during his 
illness, by the members of the company. 

Promptly at eleven the Metropolitan Orchestra be- 
gan the funeral march from Beethoven's "Eroica," and, 
carried by six skull-capped bearers, the coffin, entirely 
covered by a pall of violets, was placed upon the stage. 
Mme. Homer and Riccardo Martin and Robert Blass 
sang Handel's "Largo"; the choir-boys from Calvary 
Church who had appeared in the first American produc- 
tion of "Parsifal" intoned a setting of Tennyson's "Cross- 



SOCIAL SERVICE 105 

ing the Bar"; Dr. Wise and Professor William H. 
Carpenter, of Columbia, spoke of the dead man's work, 
and then, with the notes of the Chopin funeral-march 
sobbing through the Opera House — attended by music- 
lovers, judges, artists, financiers, leaders in almost every 
walk of life, there was taken from the scene of his greatest 
work the body of the weaver-boy of Bielitz. 

These memories have taken me somewhat far afield and 
consumed much of the space that I had intended to devote, 
in this chapter, to my own activities. I should hke to 
tell of my service as director of the Educational Alliance, 
the consolidation of a dozen activities for the benefit of 
children — and particularly the Jewish children — of that 
Lower East Side neighbourhood ; and, too, of my work on 
the Board of Directors of the Mt. Sinai Hospital, the 
institution which my father helped so many years before ; 
and of my interest in the Henry Street Settlement so ably 
developed by my friend Lillian Wald, my connection with 
which eventually led Mrs. Morgenthau and me to estab- 
hsh the Bronx House. Mrs. Morgenthau once taught in 
the Louis' Downtown Sabbath School at 267 Henry Street, 
and right next door to it Miss Lillian D. Wald and Miss 
MacDowell, the daughter of General MacDowell of Civil 
War fame, had started an experiment that was to grow 
into a vast benefit for the entire community. Up to that 
time the people of the Lower East Side who were unable 
to afford regular medical treatment for themselves or 
their babies went without it until the last minute and then 
sought the rare dispensaries; for any other sort of help, 
they turned to the district political bosses, who never 
failed to require a substantial return for favours and who 
had few favours to dispense to those who neither voted 
themselves nor controlled the votes of others. Miss 
Wald practically originated the idea of the house-to- 
house, or the tenement-to-tenement, visiting trained 



106 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

nurse, who made friends with the sick and needy in their 
own homes, cared for the ill, showed their relatives how 
to care for them, gave practical lessons on the bringing 
up of children, and demonstrated that household hygiene 
is the ounce of prevention that is worth a pound of cure. 
Out of this evolved the now famous Henry Street Settle- 
ment. 

This work deeply interested me, and I have been a con- 
stant and frequent visitor at the house, and have sup- 
ported a visiting nurse on Miss Wald's staff for the past 
twenty-two years. 

Some years ago Miss Wald unfolded to me the needs 
of a sister settlement house in the Bronx, and urged me to 
assist in organizing an establishment similar to hers. At 
a meeting at my house, which was attended by Angelo 
Patri and his wife, Simon Hirsdansky, and Jacob Shufro 
— all three of the men being now principals of schools in 
the Bronx — and Bernard Deutsch, and a few others, my 
wife and I were persuaded by their statements of the great 
good that a settlement house could do in the Bronx, and 
we agreed to finance it for a few years. We combined with 
it a music school under the supervision of David Mannes 
and Harriet Seymour who had been active in the Third 
Street Music School Settlement. 

We established it at once at 1,637 Washington Avenue, 
and, as the people said, "with a golden spoon in its 
mouth." The children in the neighbourhood — and there 
were thousands of them — flocked to it from the very day 
it was started. There seemed to be an insatiable demand 
for instruction in music, and it has been a never-ending 
delight to see the steady strides made by the little orches- 
tra started in the beginning by Mr. Edgar Stowell, up 
to 1922, when I saw them carry the entire musical pro- 
gramme of the pageant of the joint settlement houses at 
Hunter College. Several times we have been surprised 



SOCIAL SERVICE 107 

by having this httle orchestra give us a performance at 
our house, and at other times we have been regaled with 
the performance of "AHce in Wonderland" by one of 
the clubs of the Bronx House. When I survey the prog- 
ress made and the happiness given the scholars of the 
music schools, and the members of the thirty-odd clubs, 
I feel that the funds that I have invested in the Bronx 
House have produced far greater dividends than any 
of my other investments. 

Another of my social activities was my work as a mem- 
ber of the Committee on Congestion of Population in 
New York City, which really did excellent service in call- 
ing attention to the housing conditions of the metropohs. 
This committee owed a great deal to the inspiration of 
that beautiful soul, Carola Woerishoefer, granddaughter 
of Oswald Ottendorfer; Benjamin C. Marsh was its 
secretary, and it was active for several years. Our social 
survey discovered that over fifty blocks in New York 
had each a population of between 3,000 and 4,000 souls, 
and that the city's tenements contained some 346,000 dark 
rooms. We had diagrams and models made, illustrat- 
ing these conditions, hsting the plague-spots where tuber- 
culosis thrived, calling attention to the overcrowding in 
schools and the shortage of public playgrounds; in 1908 
we held an exhibition in the Twenty-second Regiment 
Armoury and, by this and other means, succeeded in se- 
curing considerable remedial legislation. Then in 1911 
there was the terrible fire in the Triangle Shirt Factory 
—an "upstairs" factory— where, owing to the bad condi- 
tions, 160 girl employees were killed. That resulted in a 
public protest against inadequate factory inspection and 
the creation of a "Committee of Safety" in which I 
served in company, among others, with Miss Anne Mor- 
gan, Miss Mary Dreier, Miss Frances Perkins, George 
W. Perkins, John A. Kingsbury, Peter Brady, and Amos 



108 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Pinchot. When Henry L. Stimson relinquished his 
duties as chairman to become Secretary of War, I suc- 
ceeded him. We were instrumental in having the legis- 
lature appoint a factory investigating committee of which 
Alfred E. Smith was chairman and Robert Wagner vice- 
chairman. 

These men came to see me, soon after their appoint- 
ments, in some embarrassment. They seemed sincerely 
desirous of performing their duties, but said they were 
badly handicapped. 

"Are you folks going to finance this investigation?" 
they asked. "Because, if you aren't, we don't see how it 
is to be carried on. The legislature appropriated only 
$10,000, and it wiU take aU that to pay a good attorney 
to do the necessary legal work." 

"I can get you a first-class lawyer who will not demand 
any fee," I said, "and he will be satisfactory to everybody 
concerned, including Tammany Hall." 

The man I had in mind was Abram I. Elkus. He 
agreed with me as to the good he could do in this capacity, 
and the public honour to be won if he would volunteer his 
services. Within two hours after my interview with 
Smith & Wagner, Mr. Elkus had assumed the post. The 
result was thirty-one successful bills constituting what is 
to my mind the best labour legislation ever passed by a 
State Legislature. 



CHAPTER VII 

EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 

MY EARLIEST contact with the inner workings 
of pontics was reading the dramatic story of the 
downfall of the infamous Tweed Ring. 

Tweed had seemed a wonderful figure; we boys knew 
him only in his largest successful aspects as a dictator: 
the originator of Riverside Drive, the constructor of the 
lavish Court House, the arbiter of the City's destinies. 
He had made John T. Hoffman, Governor of the State, 
and A. Oakey Hall, Mayor of the City. 

I had come into personal touch with the picturesque 
Oakey Hall. I had to serve a summons on him in his 
official capacity and found him in his executive office wear- 
ing a red velvet coat. 

"Young man," he said, with all the patronage of an 
emperor addressing some messenger from a remote prov- 
ince of his domains — and with a splendid accentuation 
of his title — "you can now swear that you have served the 
Mayor of New York!" 

Sometime thereafter I saw this same mayor act in "The 
Crucible," a play written by himself, to prove his inno- 
cence under the Tweed regime. 

We law-students had looked with veneration to the 
Supreme Court. We conceived of its members as men of 
immaculate morality, constantly practising an even 
balance of the scales of Justice. Our deepest admiration 
was evoked by their confidence and self-possession and the 
awe-inspiring manner in which they exercised their pow- 
ers. Many a time when I went before one of these judges 

109 



110 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

to ask an adjournment, or to have an order signed, I 
marvelled at the rapidity with which he grasped the con- 
tents of the papers submitted to him, and it was a severe 
blow to my faith in our legal and poUtical institutions 
when the impeachment of several of these judges, and 
the removal of some of them, showed that not a few had 
been tools in the hands of a corrupt boss. 

Nor were we younger men alone in our disillusion- 
ment. Others had been deceived; the leading citizens of 
New York had associated themselves in business with the 
imposing dictator. I still have an advertisement of the 
New York (Viaduct) Railroad Company, and in the hst 
of its directors the name of William M. Tweed appears 
between that of A. T. Stewart and August Behnont; 
Richard B. Connolly next to Joseph Seligman; John 
Jacob Astor has A. Oakey Hall on one side and Peter B. 
Sweeney on the other; immediately after Sweeney comes 
Levi P. Morton. The "Big Four" of Tammany were in 
good company. 

How far the Ring might have extended its power, it 
is impossible to say. Tweed had promoted Hoffman 
from the mayoralty to the governorship and no doubt in- 
tended to present him as a presidential candidate in '72. 
Amongst my clippings I find one which shows that the 
West was already considering Hoffman as a national 
figure. It is from a New York newspaper and quotes the 
Western press as announcing the following slate : 

, R. Gratz Brown of Missouri, President; 

John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Vice-President; 
Governor Hoffman of New York, Secretary of State; 
Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, Secretary of the Treasury ; 
General Hancock of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; 
Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; 
Horace Greeley of New York, Postmaster-General; 
George H. Pendleton of Ohio, Attorney-General. 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 111 

As it happened, Greeley became a presidential and 
Gratz Brown a vice-presidential candidate; Hancock 
subsequently ran for president, and Hendricks achieved 
the vice-presidency; but the serious and uncontradicted 
publication of that slate indicated the direction of Tweed's 
ambitions at the time when Samuel J. Tilden wrought his 
downfall and relegated Hoffman into obscurity. 

In the reaction from these disclosures, Tilden became 
the younger generation's hero : he had rescued New York 
from corruption. I was so impressed with his services 
that, when my fellow law-student, Michael Sigerson, ran 
for the State Assembly, while Tilden sought the presi- 
dency, I made my first entry into politics — before I was 
even a voter — by giving several October nights, in 1876, 
to speech-making for Tilden and Sigerson in the latter's 
district on the Lower East Side. 

I am one of those who have always felt that Tilden 
was elected, and that the National Republican machine 
prevented him from taking his seat. 

My observation of the machine system convinced me, 
through such happenings, that the gravest danger to 
democracy arose from within. I soon saw that, in such a 
city as New York, where the mass of the voters are un- 
familiar with governmental functions and ignorant that 
a proper administration thereof is the safeguard of lib- 
erty, the control of the dominant party would frequently 
be secured by a character like Tweed. The more I saw of 
Tammany Hall, the deeper this conviction became. 

Tammany was then as well organized as at any time in 
its history. The district leaders were generally selected 
by its boss and always responsible to him. They, in 
turn, had their precinct leaders dependent on them for 
preferment and continuance in office. The boss arranged 
his apjDointments so that he could absolutely depend on 
the servility of a majority of the district leaders. It was 



112 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

only now and then that one had the courage to assert his 
independence and fight the machine. Then he would 
either be summarily displaced, lose his own httle organiza- 
tion by his inability to dispense patronage, or else he 
would be brought back into slavery by the gift of office. 

This plan of organization has, with slight alterations, 
continued ever since. After Tweed's displacement, John 
Kelly came into the leadership ; his personal honesty was 
never doubted, but he had used the old system to obtain 
power and had to continue it to hold what he had gained. 
The story of his downfall, though not discreditable to 
him, is almost as dramatic as Tweed's. 

In his political capacity, Kelly was Comptroller of the 
City of New York, when a number of reformers deter- 
mined to oust him; in his personal capacity, he was the 
owner of an influential newspaper, the Express. The 
loss of the comptrollership would, of course, involve the 
loss of his Tammany leadership; but the policy of his 
paper was an important factor in the fight. 

William C. Whitney, then Corporation Counsel, 
headed the opposition; he had planned to remove Kelly 
by a vote of the Board of Aldermen. Two things were 
necessary: publicity in the press and votes in the Board. 

James Gordon Bennett's career was just then at its 
height. Not long before Whitney began his quiet cam- 
paign the owner of the Herald — a powerful six-footer 
— entering the old Dehnonico's restaurant at Chambers 
Street and Broadway, tried to brush aside a shm young 
man who was unconsciously crowding him at the bar. To 
Bennett's amazement, the stranger offered resistance. 
Quick blows were exchanged, and before the newspaper 
proprietor knew what had happened, he had measured 
his length on the floor; his antagonist was the pugihst 
Edwards, lightweight champion of that period. Bennett 
exerted his influence on the newspapers to suppress all 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 113 

accounts of this occurrence, and everyone agreed except 
the Express. It published the story, and, in consequence, 
Whitney found the owner of the Herald perfectly willing 
to do his part toward the political downfall of the owner 
of the Express. Bennett turned all the guns of his paper 
on the Comptroller. 

For action in the Board of Aldermen, however, some 
Republican votes were required. Whitney consulted 
Roscoe Conkling, then leader of his party in New York 
State and soon to win national fame for his all but suc- 
cessful attempt to secure Grant's nomination to a third 
term in the White House. Conkling's reply was what 
Whitney expected : the Republican state leader would not 
interfere in local matters, but had no objection to Whit- 
ney's discussing them with his county lieutenants. 

Whitney did. He went to the Republican county 
leaders, and they agreed to deliver the necessary votes in 
the Board of Aldermen. Just what deal was made, I, of 
course, do not know, but New York was soon surprised; 
the Aldermen displaced Kelly, breaking his power; the 
Mayor appointed Andrew H. Green in his stead, and two 
Republican leaders became police justices. 

Richard Croker, Kelly's successor, I knew personally 
and had unusual opportunities to study at close range, 
through my business dealings with the firm of Peter F. 
Meyer & Company, auctioneers. In that combination 
Richard Croker was the "Company." 

Meyer's career was colourful. Peter, as a mere lad, 
had a clerkship in the two rooms on the ground floor oc- 
cupied by Adrian H. Muller & Son, one of the oldest and 
most reliable real estate auctioneers in New York. By 
sheer ability he gradually rose to be its head. Through 
Croker's influence, the Supreme Court transferred the 
public auction rooms back to 111 Broadway, from whence 
they had been shifted to the Real Estate Exchange, 



114 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

59 Liberty Street. Meyer, with gratitude for such past 
favours, and perhaps with a lively anticipation of favours 
yet to come, took Croker into partnership; the firm of 
Peter F. Meyer & Company resulted. Peter wanted the 
Tammany nomination for Mayor, was disappointed when 
he did not get it, and scornfully refused the post of Sheriff 
as a stepping-stone. That his new association profited him 
in other directions was, nevertheless, soon evident. 

As I remained long one of the firm's best customers I 
had the entree to their inner office and so was in frequent 
contact with the silent partner. It was an instructive 
but not always an encouraging experience. Croker's 
real estate office was also his political headquarters; in 
fact, as I saw him at work there, I reahzed that politics 
was far more his business than was the earning of the 
real estate commissions. It was as his business that he 
treated the Democratic Organization of the City of New 
York. Again and again I have seen this keen, forever 
busy man, economic with his words, but always speak- 
ing to the point, demonstrate that he felt he owned that 
organization just as much as any man controls a concern 
in which he has a substantial majority of the stock. 

Generally as I passed through the outer room, there 
were district leaders waiting there, to report to their com- 
manding-general and receive his orders. Beside them, 
and on much the same mission, there would frequently be 
sitting men of considerable importance in other affairs 
than those generally esteemed strictly pohtical; but 
though these included certain lawyers who later graced — 
and many of whom still grace — the Supreme Court, I 
feel bound to add that Croker always respected the sanc- 
tity of the Courts. 

In any case, I have rarely seen a leader of whatever 
sort held in such awe or so sought after for favours. Once, 
at a reception of the National Democratic Club, Croker 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 115 

asked me to sit next to him, and talked to me for a half- 
hour and more of real estate prospects and reminiscences ; 
from the corner of my eye I could see the guests watch- 
ing him with interest and me with envy; when I got up, 
several of my friends adroitly tried to learn from me what 
political position I had just been promised — they could 
not understand how anybody would be given thirty min- 
utes of Richard Croker's time unless asking for, or being 
offered, an important office! Many years later, I sat in 
Warsaw beside Pilsudski, dictator of the new Poland; 
the glances that I then received were exactly of the sort 
bestowed on me at that Fifth Avenue reception by the 
citizens of our own Republic. 

Croker's withdrawal from the Tammany leadership was 
voluntary and due largely to his recognition of his own 
limitations. During his incumbency, political conditions 
gradually changed ; they so shaped themselves that Tam- 
many — which, ever since Tweed's downfall, had been rele- 
gated to municipal affairs — would soon be called upon to 
play an active part in State matters. To protect his or- 
ganization, the boss would have to control or check legisla- 
tion at Albany affecting the City of New York, and also 
endeavojur to influence the New York delegations to the 
National Conventions so as to secure federal patronage. 
To Croker, these were unexplored fields; he knew muni- 
cipal organization politics as few men of his time, but he 
appreciated the proverb about teaching an old dog new 
tricks. Partly through his connection with Andrew 
Freedman of the - Interborough System, and partly 
through that with Peter Meyer, he had become rich be- 
yond all his early hopes; he had the good sense, unusual 
in champions, to quit the ring before losing his title to a 
younger man. 

Perhaps with some hngering desire to'retain some hold 
on the affairs of the organization which he had so long 



116 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

governed, Croker arranged to be succeeded by a trium- 
virate—Charles F. Murphy, Thomas F. McManus, and, 
to give the Bronx a voice, Louis F. Heins — but that ar- 
rangement did not last long. Murphy had the nominal 
leadership and soon made it real. He attached to him- 
self a majority of the district leaders, fought the re- 
mainder, and replaced all who were irreconcilable by 
creatures of his own. He went further and accompHshed 
what Croker had not dared to attempt: the Cleveland 
Democrats in the up-state organization had gradually 
lost their hold on that machine, and the many excellent 
men who later became devotees of the Wilsonic teaching 
lacked the propensities necessary to assuming control; 
they were men of affairs who devoted thought to poHtics 
only during a campaign, whereas, the professional ele- 
ment was "on the job" for three hundred and sixty-five 
days in the year ; in that element Tammany found its own 
type, and converted these into its wilHng tools. 

Within a comparatively short time. Murphy, who had 
begun as a humble leader in the Gas House District of 
Manhattan, was both the head of the City and State 
machine in New York. It has been most depressing for 
Independents to see him absolutely control the Empire 
State delegation in the last three National Democratic 
Conventions, casting the vote of the ninety-six delegates, 
the largest vote possessed by any state — "as though," in 
Bryan's plrraseology, "he owned them." 

My personal experiences with him have been few, but 
they have served to confirm my first ' impressions. In 
1910 there was to be an election for Borough President 
of the Bronx; Arthur D. Murphy, the Tammany leader 
of the district, but not related to Charles F. Murphy, 
aspired to the positiofi. - George F. and Frederij^k John- 
son and I called on the Chief. 

He is a large man, with a huge round face and heavy 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 117 

jowl. His eyes have not the piercing quality that 
Croker's had ; they are blue and kindly and his manner is 
altogether conciliatory. He knew our mission, but his 
reception was cordial. 

We put our case frankly. We were among the largest 
investors in the Bronx. We wanted that section to be a 
desirable home-centre for the over-flow of New York's 
population. We, therefore, felt justified in discussing 
with him the necessity of having a proper administration 
with a respected citizen at its head. 

"We feel," we said, "that Arthur INIurphy is not the 
man for the place. We have no candidate of our own: 
we ask you to see that a man be selected who is fitted by 
experience and character to be the head of this growing 
borough. We want to tell you in advance that unless 
this is done, we will be forced to defeat Tammany's can- 
didate at the polls." 

The Boss listened attentively and without evincing 
either surprise or antagonism. When we were through, 
he said: 

"I'll try to prevent Arthur Murphy's nomination." 

He sincerely did try. He sent his brother to repre- 
sent him at the Convention, but failed to prevent Arthur 
Murphy from securing the place on the ticket. 

A few days later the Tammany Chief sent for the 
Johnsons and myself. 

"I did the best I could," he said, "but I couldn't stop 
this thing. I want you men to recognize my good faith 
and abide by the decision of the Convention." 

"Mr. Murphy," I said, "I told you before that I never 
merely threaten. If I withdrew my opposition, in defer- 
ence to your wishes, all that we said at our last visit would 
become mere bluff. Your un^CQpssful eft'orts don't 
change tlfe status of Arthur Murphy. We mean to run 
a third candidate, "and we will defeat your man." 



118 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

The manner of the Boss made me feel that far from 
being angry, he rather hked my consistency and sincerity. 
At any rate, we followed our plan, and Cyrus C. Miller, 
a Republican, who gave the Bronx an excellent adminis- 
tration, was elected. 

Within the party, I had seen Tammany fought by the 
Young Democracy and then by the Irving Hall Democ- 
racy, but for a long time its best enemy — until that, too, 
fell before it — ^was the County Democracy, at the head 
of which was Police Judge Maurice J. Power, the discov- 
erer of Grover Cleveland and incidentally a chent of our 
firm. 

Power was a bronze-founder when Cleveland was 
Mayor of Buffalo. The Mayor and the founder had 
some dealings about a statue that Power had cast for the 
city, and the latter observed and admired the Executive's 
extraordinary ability. At the next state convention Dan 
Manning, Lamont, and the other leaders had intended to 
nominate either General Henry W. Slocum or Roswell 
P. Flower as Governor. They found it impossible. 
Power formed a combination with the delegates of Erie, 
Chemung, and Kings, and named Cleveland and Hill to 
head the ticket. 

Power has told me the story. When he infonned 
Cleveland that he was expected to name the chairman and 
secretary of the State Committee for his campaign, Cleve- 
land asked him : 

"Who have those positions now?" 

"Manning and Lamont," said Power. 

"Are they good men?" 

"They're mighty capable men." 

"Well," said Cleveland, "I have no personal friends 
that I want to put there. Why shouldn't I keep Man- 
ning and Lamont?" 

Cleveland had been an unknown quantity to these men 




S iH o 




«■ i" +J 




E j^ 




e o'^ 








3 '-J 




i'^-ti 




@ Sg 




e t. 




t» o 




3 >. 




2 =^ 




^^ 




tJD 








O ti) 




VI tH 




O =5^ 




r/^-^" 




^J t- 




o o 




-S:>^ 




3 ^ 




K^ 




."-A 




M^ 




«*-( 




V. o 




ru ^_ 








's^ r;: 




r— -W 




i=W 




:j 




>s 




e +j 




^ vr' 




-^ 




in A 




O -^ 








(^'o 




1) c« 




i- a 




O D 




-3 4-j 




O =« 




% V 




— rH 




H^ 




jz a 




_-M O 






, 


^ c« 


rH 


c 


o 


^.2 


-7 


J= 4J 


fi 


•*-■ 'J^ 




tf ^ 


g 


3^ — . 


o 


fcH ^ 


G 


O A 


S^ 


S-5 


03 


. be 


-M 


s- C 


CI, 


S'l 


8 




o 


'-5 


rt 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 119 

who opposed him in the Convention, and they were pleased 
by this sign of his good will and political acumen. They 
accepted the offer, and later became his warm friends for 
life. 

After Cleveland's second election as President, the 
newspapers announced Power as the next postmaster of 
New York, but he did not attend the inauguration. It 
was not until after that event that he went to Washington, 
where he met Croker. 

"Judge," said the Tammany Boss, "if you want to be 
postmaster, we won't oppose you. We want you to have 
something that will satisfy you." 

Power went to the White House, where Lamont re- 
ceived him with the statement that the President had been 
asking for him a number of times and could not under- 
stand why he had been absent from the inaugural 
ceremonies. The caller was taken into the President's 
executive office, where, although the month was March, 
Cleveland sat at his desk in shirt-sleeves. He came at 
once to the point. 

"Look here," he said, "I've been wanting to know 
whether you'd accept the New York postmastership. 
Will you? For old friendship's sake, I should like yours 
to be the first appointment I make for New York." 

"I'm not strong in administrative work, as I don't like 
details," said Power. Then, jokingly, he added: "If you 
have some less exacting position which will not conflict 
with my attending to my foundry, I'd be glad to accept 
that." 

Cleveland said that he knew of no such position. How- 
ever, at 10:30 that night. Power was again sent for. 

"I've found the place for you," said the President. 
"They tell me that the Shipping Commissionership in 
New York pays $5,000, and will require but Httle of your 
time." 



120 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

To that post Power was duly appointed. 

My relations with him were always pleasant. He once 
told me that the lack of funds was about to result in the 
dissolution of the County Organization and said that I 
could have the chairmanship if I were wilhng to con- 
tribute $25,000 toward keeping it alive: I had no ambi- 
tion in that direction, and Charles A. Jackson got the 
place. Again, in 1887, when Power was in the saddle, 
my partner, Lachman, wanted the nomination of Judge 
in the Sixth District Court, but because he has always 
been a very modest man, and because he had heard that 
Judge Kelly, then holding that office, was seeking renomi- 
nation, he would not follow the usual custom of going 
personally to Power and urging his cause. One day 
within a month of election, as I crossed Park Place, I saw 
Power seated on a bootblack's stand in front of his office 
at 235 Broadway. I immediately went to our office at 
243 Broadway, and stormed Lachman into visiting that 
bootblack stand immediately. 

"The queer thing is," said Power, "that I should not 
have thought of you for the place long ago. Of course you 
shall have the place." 

He went through the form of offering renomination to 
Kelly, who declined it. I ran a fourteen-day campaign 
for Lachman, and he was elected. This was my only 
experience in managing a political campaign until I 
became chairman of the Democratic Finance Committee 
in the National Campaign of 1912. 

In 1882, when the Sidney Webbs, husband and wife, 
the English publicists, were visiting America, they told 
Miss Lillian D. Wald that they would like to meet an 
American "boss," and I arranged such a meeting with 
Power as the star. With considerable pride and absolute 
frankness, he explained in full detail how a boss came into 
being and how he remained in control. He laid great 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 121 

stress on the fact that he was a permanent substance, 
while the lesser leaders and the captors of mere popu- 
larity were but passing shadows on the poHtical glass. 
He explained how the bosses named mayors and gover- 
nors and sometimes even presidents — how they played the 
ambitions of one aspirant against those of another, and 
how they had a fatal advantage over opponents who gave 
only part time to the business of politics. 

Webb, looking at his wife for agreement, said : 

"Isn't this remarkable? It's exactly the method that 
the executive secretaries of the English labour unions use 
to maintain their positions." 

Before I had much to do with poHtics, I found out that 
neither New York City nor New York State stood alone 
in its political obloquy. Some of the greatest municipali- 
ties in the country, and many of the states, were, and are 
to-day, under control of machines like Tammany. As 
these bosses are of the same ilk, have the same aims and 
pursue the same methods, and as many of them have 
maintained themselves for several decades, a strong friend- 
ship has grown up amongst them, and they to-day practi- 
cally control the national committees and the national 
machinery of both parties. 

Thus, in 1920, Cox was nominated for the presidency 
by a combination of Democratic State bosses, who, fear- 
ing defeat, were determined at least to keep their control 
of the party organization. I know Judge Moore very 
well. He was the only member of the National Com- 
mittee in 1916 who threatened to head an open revolt 
against President Wilson's selection of Vance McCor- 
mick as chairman of the National Committee, because 
IMcCormick was not a member of that committee. Judge 
Hudspeth, of New Jersey, National Committeeman, 
came to me in great dismay at the St. Louis Convention, 
and told me so. We had a private telephone to the White 



122 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

House, and, at Hudspeth's request, I called up the Presi- 
dent, and stated the facts. The President answered that, 
as the campaign was to be run by his own friends, his 
choice of one of them would have to be ratified even if it 
displeased Judge Moore. 

I was, therefore, much amused in 1920 to see how Judge 
Moore "beat the devil around the stump" when he wanted 
George White selected as chairman of the Democratic 
National Committee. Moore resigned his position as a 
member of that committee, and White was elected in his 
place a few hours before he was made chairman of the 
Democratic National Committee. It was Murphy of 
New York; Brennan of Chicago, who had taken Roger 
Sullivan's place; Nugent of New Jersey; Taggart of 
Indiana; Moore of Ohio, and Marsh of Iowa — all out- 
standing bosses — who combined to control the nomination. 
McAdoo and Mitchell Palmer's followers not agreeing to 
combine their forces against this solid phalanx, the latter 
prevailed and the Democratic National organization is 
temporarily in their hands. 

This method of government is by no means confined to 
the Democratic Party. The Republicans are even greater 
offenders. The three Democrats that have been elected 
to the Presidency since the Civil War — Tilden, Cleveland, 
and Wilson — were all outstanding reformers, and were 
nominated in spite of the bosses or machines and not with 
their cooperation. The»Republicans, on the other hand, 
have perfected to a greater degree the machine control of 
their party, and for many years their senatorial oligarchy 
has controlled the party machinery. 

At the convention that nominated McKinley this 
machinery worked perfectly, and Mark Hanna, after- 
ward senator from Ohio, was at the throttle. When, 
however, McKinley died at the hand of an assassin, in 
Buffalo, the party leaders as well as the country's leading 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 123 

business men were tremendously concerned lest Roose- 
velt should disregard their wishes. The man that the 
bosses had reluctantly named Vice-President had hurried 
down from the Adirondacks, but none of the oligarchs had 
been able to get a word with him. Leaving Buffalo, he 
got aboard a train for New York, en route to Washing- 
ton; the leaders boarded the same train. A member of 
that group himself told me what followed. 

The leaders agreed that Hanna should come to a per- 
sonal understanding with the new President. They went 
to Roosevelt, who welcomed the idea of the interview. 

'T should be de-lighted to have him lunch with me 
here," said Roosevelt. 

The table was laid in the drawing-room, and as Hanna 
entered Roosevelt held out both his hands. 

"Now, old man," he said, "let's be friends." 

Hanna did not take the proffered hands. 

"On two conditions," he stipulated. 

"State them," said Roosevelt. 

"First," said the Senator, "we expect you to carry out 
McKinley's pohcies for the rest of his unexpired term." 

Roosevelt nodded. "I'll do that, of course. What is 
your other condition?" 

"It's this," said the Senator, "never call me 'old man' 
again." 

Then he shook hands. He did more; on his part* he 
promised that if Roosevelt kept*his word, and if he re- 
tained McKinley's cabinet and other appointments, he 
would have Hanna's support at the next National Con- 
vention. 

It was a compact that neither man forgot. Before 
many months were over rumour reported a conspiracy on 
Hanna's part and Roosevelt unhesitatingly repeated this 
to him. 

"You are carrying out your part of the bargain," said 



124 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the Senator, "as long as you continue to do so, I'll carry 
out mine." 

When Hanna died, the machine that he had controlled 
fell for a time into disuse and Roosevelt, taking advan- 
tage of the temporary absence of a machine-bred leader, 
assumed leadership, not as the head of the old machine, 
but by virtue of his position as President. He did not 
recognize the machine leaders of the various states, nor 
did they stand behind him, but he used his power to name 
Taft as his successor. 

Chief Justice Taft has himself described to me how 
Roosevelt coached him for the fight. When he called at 
the White House, the President asked him: 

"Now, then, what are you doing about your campaign?" 

"I've prepared some speeches," Taft answered. 

"What are they about?" 

"Well, I'm just back from the Phihppines. I under- 
stand them, and thought I'd talk mostly about them." 

Roosevelt threw up his hands. "What in the world 
are you thinking of? You cannot interest the American 
public at election-time in the Philippines." 

"If you don't think they'll want to hear about the Phil- 
ippines, what do you suggest they would like to hear 
about?" 

"My currency measures," said the President. "Talk 
to them about my currency measures. That's what 
they're interested in." 

So the candidate disregarded what he had written and 
composed a new set of speeches expounding Roosevelt's 
ideas on the currency. 

Nevertheless, Taft, as history soon demonstrated, did 
not recognize the Colonel as his boss. He undoubtedly 
felt sincere friendship for Roosevelt and was grateful to 
him, but he had a still stronger appreciation of the respon- 
sibilities of his office. Consequently, there soon came 



EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 125 

about a conflict between Roosevelt's adherents and Taft's, 
in which the machine leaders, having got together the 
pieces of the broken Hanna oligarchy, aligned themselves 
with the new President. 

What followed is still fresh in the memory of most of 
us. Senator Penrose, of Pennsylvania, gradually as- 
sumed leadership of the national machine; the Senate 
oligarchy was again in control of the Republican Party. 
Assured in 1912 that if Roosevelt reentered the White 
House he would construct an organization that would 
be the death of theirs, they fought the most desperate of 
all fights — the fight for self-preservation. They tri- 
umphed; the Colonel resented his defeat and bolted the 
Party. It is one of the absolute principles of machine 
politics that the welfare of the machine comes before 
everything else. It is not necessary to be in office; a 
boss is often stronger when in opposition, with fewer fol- 
lowers discontented through failure to receive a portion of 
the spoils of victory; better keep the machine intact and 
court defeat than win a national election for a party can- 
didate that the machine cannot control. These were the 
maxims that were aj^plied by both of the rival organiza- 
tions within the Republican fold — the "regular" Repub- 
licans and the Progressives — in 1912; together they polled 
over 7,000,000 as against the 6,293,000 Democratic bal- 
lots; but each considered its organization more important 
than its candidate. The world can, I think, be grateful': 
the result was Wilson. 

From 1912 onward the Repubhcan senatorial oli- 
srarchv mended its fences and repaired its machine. With 
Penrose for the directing mind, this group included 
Lodge, Knox, Brandegee, Frelinghuysen, Watson of 
Indiana, INIoses, Spencer, Hale, and Wadsworth. Some 
of these were bosses in their own states ; all were influen- 
tial with their state bosses. Roosevelt they could not 



-*«s 



126 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ignore, but, when he died, in 1919, they were left abso- 
lutely free-handed, and their National Chairman, Will 
H. Hays, originally a man of Progressive tendencies, had 
successfully employed his great talents as an organizer in 
healing the wounds of the internecine struggle of 1912. 
They nominated Senator Harding, and he was elected. 

What has occurred since is important in this connec- 
tion only as a side-light on my general contention. Presi- 
dent Harding knew the senatorial ramifications from 
within; he understood the conflict of personal ambitions 
that, human nature being what it is, went on behind the 
general conmiunity of interest in the Senate group. His 
position was strengthened by the long illness and subse- 
quent death of Penrose and he could, and did, manipu- 
late these personal ambitions, playing one against the 
other until he secured a practical stalemate. By this 
evolution of events President Harding has been relieved 
of the odium of being controlled by a senatorial oligarchy. 

If I have elaborated my observations at some length, it 
is to show why I am a foe to machine politics. This evil, 
which can reach as high as Washington, has its roots in the 
city election precinct. The district leader holds his power 
either through dispensing minor patronage or by influence 
with magistrates and political clubs, and, to do this, he 
must retain the favour of the city boss. This gives the 
latter a thoroughly organized army that includes even a 
quasi spy system, and at the same time confers a power 
unshakeable by anything short of an overt criminal act. 
Personal criticism of the boss, ostracizing him from the 
better sort of society, does not help matters, does not harm 
him. He is content with holding what he has won; the 
thing to be attacked is not the individual ; it is the system, 
and, in combating that, the serious and practically un- 
changeable difficulty consists in the fact that very few, if 
any, self-respecting, high-class men will submit to being 



EAKLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 127 

bossed. They will not take orders from Crokers or Pen- 
roses, Hannas or Murphys; therefore, they enter fields 
where the final arbiters, the men who have to decide upon 
their worth and promotion, are of a different calibre, and 
where the reward for their efforts and work is not depend- 
ent upon the whims and fancies of a political boss. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MY ENTRANCE INTO NATIONAL POLITICS 

CONSCIENCE doth make cowards of us all." 
Not mine — mine made me a politician. At fifty- 
five years of age, financially independent, and 
rich in experience, and recently released from the toils of 
materialism, it ceaselessly confronted me with my duty 
to pay back, in the form of public service, the overdraft 
which I had been permitted to make upon the opportun- 
ities of this country. Repayment in money alone would 
not suffice : I must pay in the form of personal service, for 
which my experience had equipped me. And I must pay 
now, or never. 

It was a great surprise to my friends when, in 1912, I 
suddenly entered politics, and threw myself heart and 
soul in the enterprise of securing the Presidential nomi- 
nation for Woodrow Wilson. "Why," they asked me, 
"should a man like yourself, whose whole active life has 
been spent in the thick of the battle for wealth, embark 
on the untried sea of politics? And why, if you are de- 
termined to take the risks of this experiment, do you 
choose so forlorn a hope, as the cause of the least likely of 
all the candidates, for the nomination of the party that 
has elected only one President since the Civil War?" 

The answer was as simple to me as it was strange to 
them. My life had been an intense struggle between ideal- 
ism and materialism. In youth I had burned with an 
enthusiasm for the ideal, which had fed alike upon the 
teachings of the Reverend Dr. Einhorn in my boyhood, 
the inspiring association which I had enjoyed with a 

128 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 129 

saintly Quaker doctor in New York, the noble messages 
to which I had listened from Christian ministers, and the 
austere and lofty ethical philosophy of Dr. Felix Adler. 

In early manhood, however, the temptation of material- 
ism had beset me in a familiar form. Shortly after my 
marriage I had some financial disappointments; and I 
was compelled to devote more time than I had expected 
to providing for my family. IVIy intention was to make 
their future modestly secure, and then to resume my ideal- 
istic avocation. I soon found, however, that I had a 
special gift for making money. By the time I had at- 
tained the competency which had been my ambition, I had 
become fascinated with money-making as a game. Be- 
fore I realized it, I was immersed in a dozen enterprises, 
was obligated to a hundred business friends, and, like all 
my associates, was deeply absorbed in the chase for wealth. 

Fortunately, in 1905, the prospect of disaster brought 
me to my senses. I foresaw the Panic of 1907; and, while 
others all around me plunged onward toward the brink, I 
paused and took stock of my future. I began to sever 
my financial connections. This process of slowing down 
my business pace gave me time for other introspection; 
and I realized, with astonishment and dismay, how far 
the swift tide of business had swept me from the course I 
had charted for my life in youth. I was ashamed to real- 
ize that I had neglected the nobler path of duty. I re- 
solved to retire wholly from active business, and to devote 
the rest of my life to making good the better resolutions of 
rwy boyhood. 

It took me some years to divest myself of my business 
obligations on one hand, and, on the other, to find a prac- 
tical field for social service. During this period, in which 
I was "finding myself," I was attracted to the career of 
Woodrow Wilson. I admired the courage with which he 
was fighting the battle of democracy at Princeton. And, 



130 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

in the early months of 1911, I was even more delighted to 
watch his progress as Governor of New Jersey : the splen- 
did fight he was making there to overthrow the rule of 
the bosses, and to write into the statutes of the state those 
seven measures of practical reform which his enemies de- 
risively dubbed the "Seven Sisters." 

"Here," I said to myself, "is a man who does not merely 
preach political righteousness ; here is a practical reformer. 
This man has Roosevelt's gift for the dramatic diagnosis 
of pohtical diseases; he has Bryan's moral enthusiasm 
for political righteousness. But he has qualities which 
these men lack: these are, the constructive faculty, 
the imagination to devise remedies, the courage to apply 
them, and the gift of leadership to put them into effective 
action." I wished to know more of this new and promis- 
ing character. I resolved to find an occasion for meeting 
him. 

Such an opportunity came a few weeks later. As 
president of the Free Synagogue in New York City, I 
invited Governor Wilson to be a guest of honour at the 
dinner in celebration of the fourth anniversary of its 
foundation. As I presided at the dinner, and as the Gov- 
ernor was seated at my right, it gave me a chance to get 
acquainted. I found in him at once a congenial spirit, 
and in that one intense conversation I got more from him 
than I could have gotten from half a dozen casual meet- 
ings. 

On my left was the other guest of honour. Senator Borah 
of Idaho. He and Wilson proved instantly antagonistic. 
The air was electrical with the clash of their dissimilar 
temperaments. How startled I would have been, that 
evening, could I have realized that this discordance of 
their natures, of which I was at that moment acutely con- 
scious, had in it the seeds of a future battle — an epic strug- 
gle, with the White House and the Capitol for its head- 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 131 

quarters; the world for its audience; and the destiny of 
the nations, following the greatest war in history, the prize 
that was staked on the issue. 

I was then, in fact, aware only that I was seated be- 
tween two men of strong and mutually unsympathetic 
natures ; and that they seemed equally to feel this natural 
antagonism. Wilson revealed it by his request that he be 
allowed to speak last : he plainly wished to study his rival 
before he made his own oratorical appearance. Borah 
was even more palpably depressed by the presence, at the 
same table with him, of this strange, new, powerful per- 
sonality, whose glittering intellect and polished manner 
were so strikingly contrasted with his own blunter, though, 
in their way, also powerful weapons and character. The 
Senator was so disturbed by this impact with Wilson's 
personality that his own speech of the evening fell far 
below his usual high standard. He himself was so deeply 
impressed with this deficiency that twice afterward he re- 
called to me his comparative failure of that evening. 
These two men thus seemed predestined to a combat which 
with natures so intense and powerful could be nothing 
less than mortal. When, in 1920, Wilson lost (as I be- 
lieve, only for the moment) his gallant campaign for the 
League of Nations, and, fell truly a soldier stricken on the 
field of battle, partly because of blows that were dealt by 
Senator Borah, I could not but revert in memory to the 
vivid picture of that evening in New York in 1911, when 
the two men met and took each other's measure. 

They were not alone in this measuring of mettle. Gov- 
ernor Wilson's speech of that evening was a revelation to 
all of us who listened. We saw in him a man of lofty 
idealism, and a knightly spirit; his convictions grounded 
on the secure foundation of a deep study of governmental 
institutions, and of the history of the human race ; his po- 
litical philosophy erected symmetrically upon these firm 



132 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

foundations; its fa9ade adorned with a beautiful concep- 
tion of democracy and justice as the ideals of political 
endeavour. I, for one, felt that here truly was an inspired 
leader behind whom all men like myself could range them- 
selves and know that their efforts to advance his fortunes 
would be an effective participation in the highest form of 
public service. 

My own acceptance of his leadership was instant and 
decisive. I asked him whether he was really a candidate 
for President of the" United States, and told him that I 
had a definite object in asking him the question. I was 
delighted with his reply. Looking me squarely in the 
eye, he said: "I know a great deal more about the United 
States than I do about New Jersey." 

"Governor," I said, "my object in asking you this ques- 
tion was to offer my unreserved moral and financial sup- 
port of your candidacy." 

The enthusiastic impression I gained upon that even- 
ing was confirmed and strengthened two days later, when 
I attended the dinner of the National Democratic Club, at 
which the Governor was again a guest of honour. Here, 
again, he made a speech that was heartening to all who 
sought leadership in the struggle for the regeneration of 
America. 

Let me remind my readers what the political situation 
was in 1911. That situation should be recalled in the 
light of the preceding fourteen years. In that period 
(which began with the election of William McKinley as 
President in 1896) , the United States had passed through 
one of the most momentous epochs in its political history. 
The election of McKinley by the Republicans, under the 
leadership of Mark Hanna, marked the culmination of 
thirty years of materialistic growth in this country — three 
decades in which the energies of the people were absorbed 
in the conquest of the West, in the building of our gigan- 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 133 

tic railroad system, and in the magician-like creation of 
our stupendous manufacturing industries. Pittsburgh 
was almost the new capital of a new nation, with its mar- 
vellous development of iron and steel. It was followed 
closely by the great manufacturing centres that sprang up 
in New York, New England, the Middle West, and Ala- 
bama. JNIonstrous fortunes grew up over night from the 
exploitation of our natural resources, our boundless sup- 
plies of coal, iron, oil, zinc, and lead. Masters of indus- 
try, like Carnegie and Rockefeller, amassed gold beyond 
the wildest dreams of even gem-laden Oriental potentates. 
Masters of transportation like Commodore Vanderbilt 
and James J. Hill created new empires for the residence 
of man, and gathered to themselves princely fortunes. 
Masters of finance, like J. Pierpont INIorgan, sat at the 
golden headwaters of national enterprise, directing the 
fertilizing streams of credit, and, by taking toll of them as 
they passed, accumulated an imperial revenue. Below 
these men were nameless thousands, of only less ability, 
aping the masters, and dipping with feverish hands into 
the golden flood. Mingled with these builders were pick- 
pockets of finance, pirates of promotion, and skulking 
jackals of commerce. But — all alike were money-mad. 
From the Morgans and Hills and Rockefellers and Car- 
negies, who wrought with far-se^ng vision, down to the 
shopkeepers and smallest manufacturers, nine men in ten 
were absorbed in the game of riches. 

Politics, too, had become infected. Public honours were 
no longer heaped upon patriots and statesmen : the proud- 
est title of distinction was to be called "a captain of in- 
dustry." The best brains of the country had been drained 
out of the public service into business hfe. Men who, in 
other days, would have led great public causes, were now 
presidents of great corporations. Their intellects were 
taxed to the last limit in the fierce struggle of competi- 



134 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

tion. Their characters were formed and hardened into 
the inflexible will and ruthless determination of com- 
manders of vast competitive business armies. Men like 
Morgan, upon whose shoulders rested the responsibility 
for billions of invested capital, brooked no obstacle that 
threatened for an instant the security of these vast aggre- 
gations of money, nor anything that would stand in the 
way of their continuous return of profit. 

Such gigantic financial operations inevitably affected 
those inter-relationships of the people which are expressed 
in law; and organized government soon confronted the 
danger of being swallowed by organized business. By 
the close of McKinley's first administration, government, 
indeed, had become practically a vassal of business, little 
better than another instrument of power in the hands of 
the leaders of industry. Legislation was bought like mer- 
chandise; lawmakers and administrators of law were cor- 
rupted. Politics had become an almost disreputable pro- 
fession. Lobbyists of the most odious type flaunted their 
trade publicly. To the high-minded elements of the 
community it seemed as if the nation were sliding down 
the declivity of destruction to share the fate of Rome. 

I was myself fresh from this seething caldron of mater- 
ialistic competition, and I knew personally the men and 
the methods of Big Business, so that I had occasion to 
appreciate more keenly than most people the reality of 
the danger which confronted the nation. 

To us perplexed political idealists the country over, 
who looked on with apprehension at this death grapple 
between the soul of the people and the ugly octopus of 
Big Business, the appearance of Woodrow Wilson on the 
horizon seemed a very act of Providence. Here at last 
was the leader: the man who, thinking our thoughts, shar- 
ing our visions, brought to us the promise of a political 
personahty under whose banner we could range ourselves. 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 135 

organize our enthusiasm, and take fresh hope for redemp- 
tion. 

True, the Democratic Party organization was no better 
than the RepubHcan. Nevertheless, I recalled with faith 
the words of that valiant reformer, Carl Schurz, who years 
before had said : 

"Between them [the old parties] stands an element 
which is not controlled by the discipline of the party or- 
ganization, but acts upon its own judgment for the public 
interest. It is the Independent element which in its best 
sense and shape may be defined as consisting of men who 
consider it more important that the Government be well 
administered than that this or that set of men administer 
it. This Independent element is not very popular with 
party politicians in ordinary times; but it is very much in 
requisition when the day of voting comes. It can render 
inestimable service to the cause of good government by 
wielding the balance of power it holds with justice and 
wisdom." 

Here, I thought, in this great body of thoughtful inde- 
pendents of both parties, lies the hope of political regen- 
eration. Woodrow Wilson is the only man in either party 
who stands out clearly for the things which all of us hold 
dear. If we can introduce him to these men, if we can 
lift him up upon a platform high enough to permit his 
ringing words to reach across the continent, they will rally 
to his banner as we have done. 

It was from these motives, and in this splendid hope, 
that I threw myself whole-heartedly into what my friends 
had called a "hopeless cause." Now was the opportunity 
to restore idealism to our government; to place man, as 
of old, above the dollar; to place law once more securely 
above the greed and personal ambition of the individual. 
America was very dear to me! I had come to her an 
ahen by race and speech; she had thrown wide open the 



136 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

door of opportunity to me; I had been free to find satis- 
faction for every one of my ambitions. Surely, the ut- 
most I could do in her service was little enough to repay 
the just debt I owed her. 

Let me return now to the dinner of the National Demo- 
cratic Club, which I have already mentioned. I sat at a 
table facing the guests of honour, and before they seated 
themselves I went up and spoke to Governor Wilson. 
On a sudden impulse, he exclaimed: "Come along with me, 
I want to introduce you to someone." He led me to an- 
other table, and there I had my first meeting with Walter 
Hines Page, who was then editor of the World's Work 
magazine, and who was destined later to play such a mo- 
mentous part in the salvaging of civilization while acting 
as President Wilson's Ambassador at the Court of St. 
James's. Wilson and Page had been acquainted for many 
years and they addressed each other familiarly. 

"This," said the Governor, laying his hand on my 
shoulder, "is the Mr. Morgenthau I talked about to you 
this afternoon. Now you two get acquainted." He then 
returned to the speakers' table, and Page spoke to me 
and expressed his hearty satisfaction at welcoming "the 
latest recruit to the little band of Wilson adherents." He 
invited me to call upon him at his place of business, at 
Garden City, Long Island, for a longer conference. 

Two years later Page and I recalled this scene, under 
very altered circumstances. I stopped in London on my 
way to Constantinople. There I found Page installed in 
the American Embassy. When I entered his private of- 
fice. Page had cleared his room, and we faced each other 
there alone — Page sitting forward on the edge of his 
^ chair, his elbow on the table, his head leaning against his 
hand, and with the most quizzical and expectant look upon 
his face. I said to him, "Ambassador, I know what you 
are thinking about." 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 137 

"Well, what?" he challenged. 

"You are thinking," I said, "of the day when the Gov- 
ernor of New Jersey introduced the retired financier to 
the magazine editor. That was only two years ago ; and 
now what a difference! He is President of the United 
States; you are here as his Ambassador to the Court of 
St. James's; and I am his Ambassador at the Sublime 
Porte. And you are thinking that it's mighty funny." 

"No; you're wrong," said he. 

"Then what are you thinking?" 

Still giving me that quizzical look over the top of his 
glasses, and dropping his voice to the very bottom of his 
diaphragm, he rumbled, "I was thinking it's blanked 
funny!" , 

Some time after our first meeting I called on Mr. Page 
at Garden City, and told him I was now ready to immerse 
myself completely in the campaign; and some months 
after this William G. INIcAdoo invited me to join him at a 
luncheon with William F. McCombs, who was then in full 
charge of Wilson's campaign for the nomination. I then 
agreed to subscribe a substantial sum, and, also, to under- 
take raising money from others. They accepted both 
offers gladly. I found the first by far the easier to make 
good. To redeem the second was a very different matter : 
my friends in the business world looked upon me ahnost 
as one who had lost his reason. "Why," they asked me, 
"should any one who has property be willing to entrust the 
management of the United States to the Democratic 
Party? How can a reasonable man hope for Wilson's 
nomination against veterans like Bryan, Clark, and 
Underwood? And how can any Democrat hope for vic- 
tory against the intrenched Republicans?" 

It was the hardest proposition that I ever undertook to 
sell, but we managed somehow to meet our financial 
emergencies as we came to them. 



138 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Meanwhile, the other candidates were busy. William 
Jennings Bryan had been, for years, at once the prophet 
and the Nemesis of the Democratic Party. He controlled 
its national machinery. Thrice he had led it to defeat, 
and now, for the fourth time, he aspired to lead the charge. 
Party politicians, who knew that Bryan's economic here- 
sies were fatal to the party, did not dare call together the 
national committee, where his discipline ruled their ac- 
tions. The only other place where party councils could • 
be taken was in the National Capitol. For this reason, the 
cloakroom of the House of Representatives became the 
whispering gallery of other aspirants. The House de- 
veloped two candidates for the nomination : Champ Clark, 
the genial Speaker; and Oscar Underwood, the popular 
and substantial floor leader of the majority. 

Nevertheless, we adherents of Wilson were not dis- 
mayed. Our plan of action was to secure a few state dele- 
gations, and, for the rest, to concentrate our energies upon 
creating, through the press, a sentiment among the Demo- 
cratic masses, which, we hoped, at the end would prove 
irresistible in the Convention. 

The first great test of our success (and, what was more 
important, of Wilson's capacity to grow to national stat- 
ure) came on the occasion of the Jackson Day dinner at 
Washington on January 8, 1912. This classic festival of 
Democracy has, every quadrennium, a special and a sol- 
emn significance for candidates for the Presidency. It is 
somewhat like the opening day of the Kentucky Derby at 
Louisville, when the favourite horses are led out before the 
first race for the inspection of the spectators. A seat at 
this dinner is as much prized by Democratic politicians as 
a grandstand seat is at the races. The candidates and 
their managers are as much excited as are the horse owners 
and their trainers. Upon the showing made at this pre- 
liminary try-out depends much of the crystallization of the 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 139 

sentiment amongst the politicians in favour of one special 
candidate. 

Our first experience with this dinner was a disappoint- 
ment. We men who were active in Governor Wilson's 
behalf had our headquarters at the New Willard Hotel; 
and we had gone there a day earlier to make arrangements 
for more than one hundred of the leading Democratic 
politicians and citizens of New Jersey who were coming 
on to Washington the next day, to back up Wilson's aspi- 
rations. Imagine our dismay when we found that, of the 
sixty-five tickets for the dinner to which New Jersey was 
entitled, fifty had been given to Mr. Nugent instead of to 
Mr. Grosscup, the chairman of the state committee. Mr. 
Nugent was one of Governor Wilson's bitterest oppo- 
nents, and well enough we knew that we could not get 
back the tickets from him. 

News of this blow came to me at 11 o'clock at night, 
just as I was turning out my light preparatory to retir- 
ing. My telephone rang. I heard the excited voice of 
Judge Hudspeth, the national committeeman from New 
Jersey, exclaiming: "Come right over to our room! We 
need you at once!" "But," I protested, "I am just get- 
ting into bed for the night." "Haven't you learned yet," 
he cried impatiently, "that politicians never sleep?" 

Reluctantly, I got back into my clothes and went to his 
rooms. There I found McCombs, Congressman Hughes, 
Mr. Grosscup, Joe Tumulty, and others. They were 
angry at the miscarriage of the tickets, which they attribu- 
ted to trickery; and gloomy at the thought of the poor 
showing we would make to our hundred and more friends 
from New Jersey who were coming down to the dinner, 
and who would charge us with lack of influence in the 
higher councils of the party. 

I turned the situation over in my mind while they were 
giving vent to their indignation, and said : 



140 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

"I think I see a way to turn this mishap into a victory. 
Let us arrange an overflow dinner for Mr. Wilson's friends 
exclusively, and give him an opportunity to show his ap- 
preciation of their presence, and to get their inspiration." 

This idea of a separate dinner at the Shoreham Hotel 
was a happy thought, for at the main dinner at the 
Raleigh not more than fifteen diners were really friends of 
Wilson. It was a discouraging outlook for a man who 
faced the ordeal of trying to win an audience. The over- 
flow meeting solved this difficulty. It gave him the en- 
couragement of an enthusiastic greeting from a large body 
of his friends before he had to face the unsympathetic 
audience at the main gathering. 

The morning of the day of the dinner Governor Wilson 
came to Washington and went into conference with Dud- 
ley Field Malone, Frankhn P. Glass of Alabama, and my- 
self at a luncheon in his room. He was confronted with 
a serious problem. The newspapers of that very day 
were full of the letter he had written to Adrian H. Johne, 
in which he had been guilty of that famous indiscretion of 
saying that "William Jennings Bryan should be knocked 
into a cocked hat." As we sat at luncheon about twenty 
reporters were waiting outside for Mr. Wilson to give 
them an explanation of this letter. It might have the 
gravest political consequences. Bryan was still the most 
powerful politician in the party, and, though he was not 
able to gain the nomination for himself, he could easily 
keep any other man from getting it. Wilson was deeply 
concerned to find a way out of this difficulty; but though 
he was greatly worried, I can still recall with what keen 
appetite he attacked a big steak and plateful of vegetables, 
while he asked for our suggestions. He hstened to us all, 
and then he said : 

"Now, let me bare my mind to you. What did I really 
mean when I wrote that letter? I have always admired 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 141 

Mr. Bryan as a clean-thinking, progressive citizen. I 
have always admired his methods of diagnosing the trou- 
bles and difficulties of the country. But I have never 
admired, nor approved, his remedies. What I really 
meant, then, was that his remedies should be knocked into 
a cocked hat." 

We then discussed the means by which this explanation 
should be given to the public. We finally agreed that 
Wilson should not give it through the press, but should 
wait until the Jackson Day dinner, that evening, to make 
his explanation. IMalone then went outside and told the 
reporters our decision. 

In the meantime, we had heard that Bryan was not 
really much annoyed at Wilson, because he realized that 
the men who were trying to injure Wilson were trying to 
injure him also. Hence we sent an emissary to Bryan to 
ask whether he would be willing to speak at our overflow 
dinner, and though he declined the invitation, he did so 
graciously. 

The main dinner that evening at the Raleigh was at- 
tended by more than seven hundred eager politicians from 
all parts of the country. It was an exciting occasion for 
everyone, and an occasion of special apprehension for us, 
because it was Wilson's debut in national politics. 

About midway of that dinner Wilson slipped away 
from the speakers' table, and drove over to the Shoreham. 
There, our happy gathering of a hundred had been kept 
entertained and enlivened by speeches from Tumulty, 
Dudley Malone, and others. When Wilson arrived, he 
found an audience eager to be charmed, and it put him 
upon his mettle. He gave a very happy speech ; and when 
he left, to return to the Raleigh, there were cheers and feli- 
citations ringing in his ears. It put him in fine feather 
for his masterly effort of the evening at the main dinner. 

Here I had an opportunity to observe, at very close 



142 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

range, one of the most interesting spectacles of my whole 
experience. At the speakers' table sat Senator O'Gorman, 
the toastmaster of the evening. At his right was William 
Jennings Bryan, the ever-hopeful leader of the Demo- 
crats, who was playing each of the important candidates 
against the other, in the hope of killing them all off, and 
securing the nomination himself. There sat also Under- 
wood and Clark and Foss and Hearst and Marshall. 
Pomerene was there, as the representative of Governor 
Harmon of Ohio, and Judge Parker, happily forgetting 
his defeat. Each man knew that this moment was 
charged with fateful destiny. As each one made his 
speech, I could see the others taking his measure, and 
watching the crowd of diners to divine its reaction. 
Bryan, as the patriarch of the candidates, was to make the 
last address of the evening. It was to be his opportunity 
for a great oration that would restore to him the mastery 
of the party. 

Wilson was the last speaker to precede him. When he 
arose, there was a brief applause of politeness, with an 
extra short outburst from the little handful of fifteen ad- 
herents. Every speaker who had gone before him had 
talked of party harmony. Wilson seized the opportun- 
ity of this text to clear up, with one masterly stroke, the 
dilemma of the "cocked hat" story. After a few happy 
remarks of acquiescence in the plea for harmony, Wilson 
turned to Mr. Bryan and, with a really Chesterfieldian 
gesture, said: "If any one has said anything about any of 
the other candidates, for which he is sorry, now is the time 
to apologize," and made a smiling bow to the Commoner. 

The audience broke into spontaneous and sincere ap- 
plause at this stroke. They appreciated both its manli- 
ness and its cleverness; and they sat up with really ex- 
pectant attention to hear the rest of his address. 

Wilson rose to his opportunity. His speech revealed 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 143 

to these men a new power in the party. He made a splen- 
did exposition of the issues before the country, and gave 
his vision of the remedies with beautiful eloquence and 
unanswerable logic. The audience progressed from rapt 
attention to enthusiasm. 

All this time I was watching the face of Bryan. I have 
never seen a more interesting play of expression on the 
stage than the exhibition which he unconsciously gave. 
Here was the rising of a new political star, which he well 
knew meant the setting of his own. His face expressed 
in turn surprise, alarm, hesitation, doubt, gloom, despair. 
When Wilson took his seat amidst tremendous applause 
Bryan's face was that of a man who had met his Waterloo. 
He rose like one who was dazed, and made a speech of ab- 
dication. He said that the time had come when a new 
man should be nominated, a man who was free from the 
asperities of the past, and that he w^as willing to march in 
the ranks of the party, and work with the rest of us to help 
on this victory, which he saw assured. He then started to 
sit down, but everyone applauded so vigorously, shouting 
"Go on! Go on!" that he became confused. For once, 
his political sagacity forsook him: he did not realize that 
he should stop. He regained his feet, and made a sad 
anti-climax by telling the diners stories of his observations 
in the Philippines and elsewhere. The evening was a 
Wilson triumph. 

The effect upon Wilson's fortune was instantaneous. 
The next morning our little headquarters was the Mecca 
of the politicians. Congressmen and Senators and mem- 
bers of the National Committee streamed to our rooms at 
the Willard. Some came to pledge us their support of 
Wilson; others to take the measure of his managers. Of 
the latter class. Senator Stone of Missouri was the most 
interesting. We saw then how- he had earned his title, 
"Gum Shoe Bill." He dropped in, so he said, for just a 



144 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

minute's conversation, as Mrs. Stone was waiting for him 
in the lobby, where he had promised to rejoin her in a few 
minutes. He stayed for more than half an hour. He 
spent that time telling us a very humorous story, which 
would be worth retelling on its merits if it were printable. 
It dealt with several whimsical characters in a little town 
in the Ozarks, and he told it with all the rich embroidery 
of characterization and dialogue with which the best 
Southern story tellers elaborate their narratives. It was 
really a little masterpiece of the raconteur's art, but it had 
no pertinence to our serious business. I soon became 
aware, however, that Stone himself had a serious purpose. 
All the while he was spinning his story out, to make it 
longer, his eyes were stealing from one face to another of 
his auditors, shrewdly appraising their reactions, studying 
each of them to learn what he could of their characters and 
foibles. When he finally drew the story to its close, 
sprung the "nub," and got a round of laughter, he left, as 
I felt sure at the moment, with a pretty definite estimate 
of each of us in his head. 

The extraordinary success of Wilson's Jackson Day 
speech had its evil effects as well. It made other candi- 
dates realize that the man each of them had to beat was 
Wilson. Thus, all the politicians centred their attacks 
on him. They ceased their efforts to take delegates away 
from one another, and allotted to each candidate an undis- 
puted field in the territory where he could help to make a 
showing. Their plan was to prevent Wilson from com- 
ing to the Convention with a large pledged vote. 

In the meantime, we devoted our efforts to making Wil- 
son popular among the Democratic press and masses, 
building up, throughout the country, a sentiment which 
made him the second choice in nearly every section where 
a favourite son got a preference with the delegates. Our 
greatest fear was that one of the two strongest candidates 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 145 

might yield his strength to the other in the hope of defeat- 
ing Wilson. 

Fortunately for us, the logic of the situation made our 
strategy also the best strategy for Bryan. He and his 
brother, with their keen political sense, were playing ex- 
actly the same game as we were. The result was that 
every candidate came to the Convention with his full 
strength, and a determination to use it. 

We had other troubles. Repeatedly we faced financial 
difficulties, and many times the few men of means among 
us had to go down into their own pockets to make up the 
deficiency. I had to do so myself, and I leaned heavily 
on devoted friends of Wilson, like Cleveland H. Dodge, 
Charles R. Crane, and Abram I. Elkus. Then, too, there 
were personal differences. I shall never forget when 
Dudley Field Malone, with his high-powered tempera- 
ment and his high-flown oratory, burst into my office, ex- 
claiming, "I come with a message from a King to a King!" 

"Come to earth, talk English," I responded. 

"Well," he said, "the Governor has sent me to ask you 
to investigate the row between McCombs and Byron New- 
ton. He wants you to settle the matter without his inter- 
vention." 

I sent for Newton first, to get his version of the trouble; 
and when he called, he was so unbridled in his language 
and so sweeping and illogical in his accusations against 
McCombs — he gave me an ultimatum that either he or 
McCombs must be instantly displaced— that I did not 
wait to hear the other side of the story, but promptly de- 
cided in McCombs's favour. I concluded at once that Gov- 
ernor Wilson could not afford, at that critical moment, to 
expose himself to the charge of being ungrateful toward 
McCombs, who, notwithstanding his shortcomings, had 
rendered him invaluable services. 

At last came the great days of the Convention. We 



146 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

went to Baltimore with less than half enough pledged dele- 
gates to secure the nomination. Our hopes lay in the 
splendid impression that Wilson had made upon the 
country, and in the generalship we should exercise upon 
the floor of the Convention. The odds were all in favour 
of Champ Clark. He had better than a hundred more 
pledged delegates than Wilson, and the ground swell of 
the politicians in his favour. Still, we were not daunted. 
There were elements in our favour. The Baltimore Sun, 
chiefly through the enthusiasm of Charles H. Grasty, cre- 
ated an atmosphere of Wilson optimism in the city that 
had an undoubted effect upon the delegates. And a de- 
termining influence with many delegates and the public 
at large was a wonderful editorial, written by Frank I. 
Cobb and pubUshed in the New York World at the psy- 
chological moment. 

The supreme opportunity for all of us to use our best 
talents in behalf of Wilson came at the dramatic climax 
of the Convention when, on the third day and with the 
tenth ballot. Champ Clark received a majority vote of the 
delegates. Though two thirds were necessary to get the 
nomination, Clark's adherents thought that the achieve- 
ment of a majority marked the turn of the tide and the 
assurance of victory. They had sound historical warrant 
for this faith: for only once before had a Democratic 
candidate who received a majority of the votes failed to 
get the nomination. 

If Clark's managers had been able to capitalize that 
critical moment, their candidate might have gone to the 
White House eight months later. 

When this tenth ballot was announced, the Convention 
greeted the Clark majority with wild enthusiasm. What 
his managers should have done was to have pressed this 
advantage to an immediate conclusion. A few more quick 
ballots taken under the emotion of that moment would 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 147 

doubtless have carried him over the line to victory. In- 
stead, they wasted the opportunity, and the Missouri dele- 
gation organized a snake dance around the hall, and spent 
the next fifty-five minutes frittering away the precious en- 
thusiasm of the Convention by cheering themselves hoarse 
in celebration of an assumed victory. They stimulated 
the joy of Clark's adherents by bringing in his young 
daughter, wrapped in an American flag, and placing her 
beside the chairman. This pretty picture provoked a 
fresh outburst of triumphant cheering. 

Those fifty-five minutes cost Clark the nomination. 
JNIcCombs, Palmer, McAdoo, and the rest of us had a hur- 
ried consultation on the platform, not ten feet away from 
Ollie James, the impartial chairman, who did nothing to 
discourage the wild demonstration. We agreed on a plan 
of campaign, and, as heutenants, all scurried about the 
hall, consulting with the leaders of the other delegates. 
We got the Underwood forces to agree to stand fast for 
their candidate on the next few ballots, and made the same 
arrangement with the Marshall and Foss delegates, 
pledging ourselves, in turn, to hold our people fast for 
Wilson. 

In three quarters of an hour we had corralled our 
delegates safely out of the path of the Clark stampede. 
They sat immovable in the face of the frenzy of the crowd. 
When the Clark demonstration had subsided, and the next 
ballot was taken, the Clark managers had a rude awaken- 
ing: the result was practically unchanged. Then, with 
a stroke of political genius, INIitchell Palmer arose, and 
claimed recognition from the Chair. Tall, massive, and 
extremely handsome, Palmer was at the height of youth- 
ful grace and vigour. The Chairman recognized him, 
and Palmer moved an immediate adjournment to the 
following morning. Before the Clark delegates grasped 
the meaning of this manoeuvre the motion had been put 



148 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

and carried. This respite gave Clark's enemies a full 
day in which to make fresh alHances against him, and 
every one of the succeeding thirty-five ballots cut down 
his vote in the Convention. 

The tide had turned. Wilson's strength grew steadily, 
because as soon as a delegate realized that his own candi- 
date's cause was hopeless, his thoughts turned from his 
personal preference to the welfare of the party, and, in 
almost every case, he realized that Wilson was the one 
man to lead it on to victory. They realized, too, that a 
solemn duty rested on them. The Roosevelt defection 
from the Republican Party had ruined its chances, so that 
these Democratic delegates knew they were not merely 
nominating a candidate — they were actually electing a 
President. 

After the nomination, the preliminary notification fol- 
lowed at Sea Girt a few days later. Here again was an 
opportunity to study human nature. Most of the de- 
feated competitors for the nomination came and tendered 
their hearty congratulations. But Clark came like one 
who was attending the funeral of his hopes. He could 
not master his disappointment, nor conceal it. His de- 
pression lay upon the gathering like a cloud. It was so 
palpable that Tumulty saw that something must be done 
to lift it, else the proper spirit of the occasion would be 
destroyed. Tumulty then came to me, and suggested 
that Clark be taken for a ride. I approached Clark, and 
invited him to use my car. He accepted and asked if he 
might go anywhere he wished, and, of course, my reply 
was, "Certainly." He then explained that his daughter 
was visiting in the neighbourhood, and he would like to 
see her. Filling the car with his friends, they drove away, 
with my son, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., at the wheel. 

When my son came back, he had a broad smile on his 
countenance. "Where do you suppose," he exclaimed, 



ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 149 

"Clark asked me to take him? His daughter is staying 
with George Harvey's daughter!" 

The "George Harvey" to whom my son referred was, 
of course, Mr. Wilson's former supporter with whom he 
had recently had a much-advertised disagreement, and 
who is now Mr. Harding's much-discussed Ambassador 
in London. 

Here was a dilemma! I had already told Governor 
Wilson that Clark had gone to visit his daughter, and 
that she was staying with friends in the neighbourhood, 
and he had said: "I shall see that my daughters call on 
her." Now, I had to tell him who "the friends in the 
neighbourhood" were. When I did so, he only smiled, 
and said: "That's rather awkward, isn't it?" 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 

WILSON'S nomination in 1912 was equivalent to 
an election. The split in the Republican Party 
made this a foregone conclusion. They forgot 
the interests of the country in a bitter internal struggle 
for the control of their party machinery. Roosevelt, 
furiously ambitious to regain his power, was pitted against 
the old organization bosses, who were determined to re- 
tain possession of the party. Led by Penrose they were 
lost in an implacable rage against the "rebel" who had 
once unhorsed them in the party councils. To them the 
election of a president became a secondary matter. The 
supremely important issue was the control of their party 
machinery. Penrose and his fellow bosses felt that their 
future — their very existence as political leaders — was at 
stake. If Roosevelt made good his position, that the 
Independents ought to continue to control the mechanism 
of the party (as they had controlled it during his tenure 
of office) , what did it profit Penrose and his kind to build 
up their state machines, only to be balked of the supreme 
prize of national ascendancy? They would, fike Othello, 
find their occupation gone. With the fury of men blinded 
by hatred and ambition, they preferred to wreck the 
party's chances for the next four years if, by so doing, 
they could destroy the Roosevelt rebellion against their 
domination. 

I really felt that my own connection with the campaign 
was at an end. With the Presidency thus secure by 
reason of the Republicans' internecine quarrel, we Demo- 

iso 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 151 

crats were in the position of a plaintiff who had simply to 
go through the formality of entering judgment by default 
and take possession of the Government on behalf of the 
people. 

I had never participated in the active work of a national 
campaign, and it did not appeal to me to do so. The offer 
made me by McCombs to become chairman of the Finance 
Committee I had promptly declined, as I thought that if 
I had anything to do with the finances of the National 
Democratic Committee, I should be treasurer. So I pre- 
pared to spend the summer in the Adirondacks. But the 
day that I was to take my family to the mountains I 
motored down to Sea Girt to bid Governor Wilson good- 
bye. The Governor had not yet come down to breakfast, 
and, as I had to take an early train to make my connec- 
tion for the mountains, I was about to leave when word 
came down from him requesting me to wait a few minutes 
longer, as he was anxious to see me. Shortly afterward 
he came down the steps, as sprightly and active as a man 
of thirty, full of energy and determination. When I told 
him I had come to say good-bye to him, he was surprised 
and concerned. 

"This is a great disappointment to me," said Governor 
Wilson. "I had hoped that you would accept the position 
of chairman of the Finance Committee. This is a new 
position which I have asked the National Committee to 
create especially for you, and I had relied upon your wil- 
lingness to accept it and render me a great service." 

I told the Governor that I was disinclined to be merely 
a money collector, and unless I was appointed treasurer, 
or a member of the Campaign Committee, I should not 
care to participate in the campaign. The Governor 
answered : 

"Of course I expect you to be a member of the Cam- 
paign Committee, and I still hope that I can persuade 



152 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

you to accept the chairmanship of the Finance Committee. 
My idea is that in this campaign the chairman of the 
Finance Committee will have to perform the functions of 
the president of a bank, directing the large financial 
policies and protecting me against mistakes of accepting 
moneys from improper sources. The treasurer should 
correspond to the cashier. He should be the custodian 
of the funds and have charge of the clerical and book- 
keeping details. 

"I shall insist that no contributions whatever be even 
indirectly accepted from any corporation. I want especial 
attention paid to the small contributors. And I want 
great care exercised over the way the money is spent. 
These duties will call for an unusual degree of ingenuity 
and resourcefulness. I would not ask you to undertake 
this task if I didn't think you had the imagination to 
accomplish it; and I would not expect you to accept it if 
I did not think it would be interesting to a man of your 
experience and ability." 

The Governor seemed so genuinely concerned and 
showed so clearly that he dreaded facing another financial 
canvass after the frequent worries he had endured from 
this source in his pre-nomination fight, that I could no 
longer resist. I accepted, and added: 

"I shall take a few days to settle my family in the 
Adirondacks; then I shall return and get to work. And 
now, Governor, having accepted the responsibility, I want 
to assure you that you may dismiss all thoughts of finance 
from your mind from now until election." 

The Governor took my hand and held it while he said: 

"You do not realize what a load you are lifting from 
my shoulders. I can now devote myself entirely to cam- 
paigning and to my duties as Governor." 

I considered the discussion closed and was about to 
leave, when the Governor detained me. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 153 

"One thing more," he said. "There are three rich men 
in the Democratic Party whose poKtical affihations are 
so unworthy that I shall depend on you personally to see 
that none of their money is used in my campaign!" 

I gave him my assurance, and he gave me their names. 
This was the only occasion on which I discussed finances 
with Mr. Wilson from that day to this. I made good 
my promise that he should have no cause to think again 
of finances. And when he went into the White House he 
went without obligations, expressed or implied, to any 
man for any money that had been contributed during the 
campaign. 

The principal reason I was able to make good my 
promise to the Governor was that I instituted, for the 
first time in American political history, a budget system 
both for collecting the funds and expending them. I 
called to my assistance Mr. Rajaiiond B. Fosdick, a 
budget expert; and in consultation with the members of 
the Democratic National Committee, we worked out an 
allotment of the amounts we expected from the various 
states. We then worked out the kinds of legitimate ex- 
penditures which we would encounter, weighed their 
relative values, and allotted to each its corresponding pro- 
portion of the money we expected to raise. With minor 
exceptions, we adhered to this budget throughout the cam- 
paign; and we had the great pleasure of paying every bill 
in full before the first of the following January, and of 
having $25,000 cash balance to the credit of the National 
Committee in bank. 

My financial work in the National Committee was 
novel to me only in the sense that it was managing the use 
of money in a new field. But my work with the Com- 
mittee on its human and political sides was an entirely new 
experience, and a very fascinating one. 

On the human side, I found the same play of personal 



154 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ambitions — of jealousy and other evil passions — aroused 
by the prospect of advantage in politics, that I had seen 
aroused by the prospect of material reward in business. 
But, on the whole, the human picture in politics was as 
pleasant as it was interesting. Our headquarters was, to 
be sure, the scene of the ill-humoured rivalries of Mc- 
Combs and McAdoo and their adherents; but, on the other 
hand, it was the scene also of the touching fraternal de- 
votion of "Joe" Wilson, whom the Governor affection- 
ately called "my kid brother," who gladly did all the tasks 
that came to hand out of sheer regard for the Governor. 
The delightful friendships that I formed with Rollo 
Wells, Josephus Daniels, Joseph E. Davies, Senator 
O'Gorman, Hugh C. Wallace, Homer S. Cummings, and 
others, were a source of enduring pleasure. We all soon 
fell into the genial habit of calling one another by our first 
names — this is indeed a custom of the National Com- 
mittee. McCombs, who felt somewhat my greater age, 
began calhng me "Uncle Henry," a name which has since 
stuck to me in the familiar conversation of most of my 
close political friends. 

As it ultimately turned out, the headquarters was a 
proving ground for coming Cabinet members, senators, 
and diplomats. Josephus Daniels had for the moment 
abandoned his paper in North Carolina and come to New 
York to take charge of the national publicity. McAdoo 
dropped his business temporarily to become vice-chairman 
of the National Committee and forward the Wilson for- 
tunes. Congressman Redfield, discarded by the local 
Democratic organization in Brooklyn, found an oppor- 
tunity for usefulness which led to his later appointment as 
Secretary of Commerce. At the Chicago branch of Na- 
tional Headquarters, Albert S. Burleson of Texas was a 
field-marshal of our growing army. Colonel House did 
not take an active part in the direction of the campaign; 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 155 

he was then only in process of attracting Wilson's con- 
fidence in him as a man above the wish for personal ad- 
vancement. 

But on its political side I found my work a real revela- 
tion. Perhaps, indeed, the biggest single lesson I ever 
got in politics I got through the contact I then experienced 
with William Sulzer, who was Democratic candidate for 
Governor of New York. This experience added so much 
to my knowledge of the invisible government which stands 
behind government, and was besides so picturesque and 
dramatic, that I think it worth while recounting it at 
some length. 

One morning as I sat at my desk at the headquarters 
in New York, an odd though familiar figure was ushered 
into my office. I had known William Sulzer for perhaps 
twenty years. His greatest pride was his resemblance 
in face and figure to the immortal Henry Clay. This 
physical resemblance was not fanciful. Sulzer had his 
high forehead, large mouth, and deep-set eyes — he bore, 
indeed, altogether a quite remarkable likeness to the Sage 
of Ashland. He had, too, the same long, slender, and 
loose- jointed figure. This resemblance, with which Na- 
ture had endowed him, Sulzer had cultivated with assidu- 
ous care. He had grown a long forelock, and had trained 
it to fall over the forehead after the Clay style. And he 
had cultivated a gift for ready speech into as near an 
approach to the eloquence of Clay as his hmitations of 
mind permitted. 

But as I looked up at him that morning in 1912, I saw 
Sulzer garbed in a strange departure from the elegance 
with which Clay, who was something of a dandy, was 
used to adorn his person. Sulzer was made up — it is fair 
to use this theatrical expression because Sulzer was evi- 
dently seeking a theatrical effect— made up to portray the 
part of "a statesman of the people." His coat was of one 



156 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

pattern, and his vest of another. His baggy trousers 
were of a third. The gray sombrero which he always 
affected was rather dingy; his Hnen just a trifle soiled. 
Familiar as I was with Sulzer's political poses, through 
our acquaintance, I mentally noted the skill of the 
morning's costume in dressing the part of "a friend of 
the people." 

Sulzer's career had been of a sort possible only in Amer- 
ica. A native of New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian 
minister, a graduate of Columbia University, a man of 
good family, good mind, and good education, he had taken 
up his residence on the lower East Side of New York 
City, had joined the Tammany organization, and had 
struck out boldly for a great political career in those 
untoward surroundings. Despite his religious heri- 
tage, he had been greatly impressed, as a young man, 
with the prophecy of a clairvoyant who had told him 
he should be Speaker of the New York State Assembly, 
Governor of New York, and President of the United 
States. 

Sulzer had, indeed, made considerable progi-ess on this 
path of political advancement. Elected to the State 
Assembly as a young man in his early twenties, he quickly 
rose to prominence, and at thirty he was chosen Speaker 
— the youngest man, I believe, ever to hold that office. 
From the State Assembly he was sent by Tammany to 
Congress, and now, in 1912, had represented his district 
in Washington for seventeen years. He constantly 
"played up" to the Jewish element. The ingratiating 
manner which he carefully cultivated appealed to a 
people, proud, sensitive, and accustomed to a lack of cbTi- 
sideration from officers of Government. In Congress he 
was indefatigable in the interest of his constituents; and, 
on the whole, his attitude on public^ questions was satis- 
factory. From the public viewpoint Sulzer was one of 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 157 

the most respectable of the Tammany adherents. From 
the Tammany viewpoint he was "safe." 

The nomination of Governor Wilson and the assurances 
of Democratic Party success in the national campaign 
gave Sulzer his great opportunity. From the Tammany 
leaders came covert intimations to us members of the 
Democratic National Committee, that we would be per- 
mitted to suggest the Democratic candidate for Governor 
of New York. Fortunately we realized the implications 
of this offer and declined it. It meant, in substance, that 
Tammany, by permitting us to name the candidate for 
Governor, thereby became fully affiliated with the national 
campaign and would be in a position to demand, after 
election, special consideration in the distribution of Fed- 
eral patronage. We made a reply which did not offend 
Tammany but which, on the other hand, left us entirely 
free of the Tammany entanglement. We said that we 
were not interested in taking a hand in the state situation ; 
that we endorsed the then widespread public demand for 
an "open convention" to nominate the Governor. We 
suggested that Tammany refrain from dictating the nomi- 
nation, so that the Independents of New York would 
support the national as well as the state Democratic ticket. 

The Tammany leaders professed to accept this decision. 
The state convention, when held, had the air of an open 
convention. They cast about for a candidate, and settled 
on Sulzer. Without inconveniencing Tammany, he had 
been able to make something of a reputation as a pohtical 
progressive. He had professed a great attachment for 
social reforms, the kind which Roosevelt in Washington 
aiad Wilson in New Jersey had made popular. He had 
built up a reputation as a friend of the common man, and 
in New York he was still "strong with the East Side." 
Tammany manipulated the "open convention" at Syra- 
cuse, and Sulzer was' nominated for Governor. 



158 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

I had followed Sulzer's career with a good deal of in- 
terest. Though I did not approve of his capitalizing 
politically his friendship for a racial element, I felt, never- 
theless, that he had been a useful public servant; and he 
had been successful with me, as he had been with many 
other political independents, in making me believe that 
he was sincerely interested in the cause of civic reform. 
Consequently, I greeted him cordially. 

Sulzer began the conversation by thanking me for "what 
I had done in helping him and bringing about his nomina- 
tion." This was a polite generality as, of course, I had 
had no hand in that enterprise, except that I had been a 
party to the "hands-off" policy of the National Com- 
mittee, and also, that I had shared in the request of the 
Committee to McAdoo not to accept this nomination which 
some of his friends were trying, with some hope of 
success, to secure for him. We had felt that it was his 
duty to stay in the national campaign, as McCombs was 
still incapacitated by illness. 

Sulzer then went on to express the wish that I would 
be of use to him after he was elected. He spoke in glow- 
ing terms of the reputation Governor Wilson had made 
by his reforms in New Jersey, and expressed an ambition 
to make a similar record as Governor of New York. He 
confided to me the clairvoyant's prophecy of his future 
and declared that he beheved that the path to the Presi- 
dency lay in championing "the cause of the people." 

He wanted my cooperation, after he should be elected 
Governor, in formulating plans to make his administra- 
tion a success. As everyone knows who is experienced 
either in business or politics, there are "subtleties of ap- 
proach" that suggest a man's real meaning without his 
even remotely mentioning the true subject in conversation. 
Sulzer's remarks were of this nature. I saw plainly that 
lie was directing my thoughts to a point where it would 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 159 

be possible for him without embarrassment to sohcit a 
subscription to his campaign fund. I wanted to save the 
future Governor of New York from sohciting a subscrip- 
tion, and consequently, I forestalled his intention by 
voluntarily handing him my check for $1,000. His re- 
sponse to this action was in keeping with the amenities of 
the situation. He said: "I did not expect that from you. 
I don't want it, because you are doing so much for the 
National Committee." But the check disappeared into a 
pocket of his dingy coat. 

In the meantime, the march of political events led us 
on to Election Day and victory. Woodrow Wilson was 
triumphantly elected President, with a Democratic Con- 
gress behind him. The political ambitions of some of his 
managers were gratified. INIcAdoo became Secretary of 
the Treasury; Daniels, Secretary of the Navy; Redfield, 
Secretary of Commerce; and Burleson, Postmaster- 
General. What my friends a few months earlier had 
called a hopeless cause was now a dazzling success. 

In April, 1913, Senator O'Gorman telephoned me from 
Washington that he had been requested by the President 
to offer me the Ambassadorship to Turkey. I apparently 
astonished him when I told him please to thank the Pres- 
ident for me, but that I would not accept. O'Gorman, 
whom I had known for many years, urged me to come to 
Washington to discuss the matter with him. He said 
that I had no right to refuse such a tender over the tele- 
phone. I complied with his request, and we discussed the 
matter one evening until well j)ast midnight. O'Gorman 
used all his persuasive powers, and told me that it seemed 
strange that I, an entire newcomer in politics, without ever 
having rendered any other political service, should have 
the temerity toMecline to be one of the President's ten 
personal representatives, in the capacity of Ambassador 
at one of the important Courts of Europe. He told me 



160 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

that the President was very much disappointed at my 
decision ; and urged me to see him personally, and explain 
to him my reasons for declining. He said he knew the 
President was very anxious to avail himself of my services, 
and thought it ill advised for me to refuse to obey what 
amounted to a command from the head of the Govern- 
ment. I called on the President, and he said : 

"I want you to take the Embassy at Constantinople. I 
am convinced that the two posts that demand the greatest 
intellectual equipment in our representatives are Turkey 
and China. Therefore, I am particularly concerned to 
have, in these two countries, men upon whom I can abso- 
lutely rely for sound judgment and knowledge of human 
nature. This is the reason I am asking you to take the 
post at Constantinople." 

"If that is the situation," I replied, "I should much 
prefer China, although it is only a ministership. And for 
this reason: the Jews of this country have become very 
sensitive (and I think properly so) over the impression 
which has been created by successive Jewish appoint- 
ments to Turkey, that that is the only diplomatic post to 
which a Jew can aspire. All the Jews that I have con- 
sulted about your offer have advised and urged me to 
decline it. Oscar Straus has been criticized by some of 
his co-religionists for accepting a second and even a third 
appointment to Constantinople. I don't mind criticism, 
but I share the feeling of the other Jews that it is unwise 
to confirm an impression that this is the only field for 
them in the diplomatic service." 

Mr. Wilson's reply was aggressive in manner and 
almost angry in tone. 

"I should have hoped," he said, "that you had a higher 
opinion of my open-mindedness and freedom from preju- 
dice than this. I certainly draw no such distinctions, and 
I am sorry that you should have thought so. I think you 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 161 

will agree with me when I give you my further reasons 
for this choice. In the first place, Constantinople is the 
point at which the interest of the American Jews in the 
welfare of the Jews of Palestine is focussed, and it is 
almost indispensable that I have a Jew at that post. On 
the other hand, our interests in China are expressed 
largely in the form of missionary activities, and it 
seems quite necessary that our Minister there should be 
a Christian, and preferably a man of the evangelical type ; 
and I am sincerely anxious to have you accept Turkey." 

Nevertheless, I remained firm in my refusal to accept 
the offer, and told the President I would have to find some 
non-political path in which to serve the people. 

As I left the President, he gave me a look which is 
hardly describable. He was sadly disappointed that he had 
not been able to dominate my decision. He showed a deep 
affection for me, and it was evident how much he regi-etted 
that his arguments had failed to persuade me. On the 
other hand, I felt sorry, and probably showed it in my 
face, that I appeared so ungrateful at not promptly com- 
plying with his request, and abiding by his judgment that 
Turkey was the best place in which I could serve the 
country. 

Shortly thereafter, my wife, my daughter Ruth, and 
I embarked for Europe, where we intended to spend 
the summer. While at Aix-les-Bains, I met Ambassador 
Myron T. Herrick, and I mentioned to him that I had 
refused the Ambassadorship to Turkey. He told me that 
I had made a grievous mistake, and i^robably from ignor- 
ance ; that I did not comprehend what a splendid position 
that of Ambassador was; that not only I, but my 
children and my children's children, would be benefited by 
my having held such a position. He ended by urging me 
that if I still could obtain the post, I should take steps to 
secure it. 



162 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

My friend, Dr. Stephen S. Wise (of the Free Syna- 
gogue of New York, of which I was president) , was then 
in Paris. I wrote him about the matter, and asked whether 
he could come to Aix-les-Bains for a consultation. He 
rephed that he had but three days left in Europe, but 
that if I would start to Dijon the following morning 
he would also start from Paris, and we should both 
reach Dijon at noon. He would meet me at the station, 
and we could have four hours together to discuss the 
matter before our return to our respective bases. 

We met at Dijon as arranged, and to my astonishment 
I found Wise tremendously anxious to have me accept the 
position. He told me that he had just visited Palestine, 
and that amongst the other services that I could render in 
Turkey, would be a great service to the Jews in Palestine. 
He reminded me of the happy experience, in the same 
office, of Solomon Hirsch, of Portland, Ore., who had 
been president of his congregation in that city. I knew 
the facts of that experience as Mr. Hirsch was the uncle 
of Judge Samson Lachman, who had been my partner in 
the practise of the law for twenty years. Dr. Wise urged 
me with all the force of his eloquence to rescind my 
declinatioti. 

I told Dr. Wise that I would be back in America in 
September, and if the position had not yet been filled at 
that time, I would reconsider it. On the strength of this 
statement. Dr. Wise telegraphed the President that I 
would accept. Within three days I received a cable from 
the President, again tendering me the position, and I 
accepted it. 

Meanwhile, on January 1, 1913, Sulzer had been inau- 
gurated as Governor of New York. A few weeks before 
this event, some of the leading social workers of New 
York City came to me and asked me to secure them an 
opportunity to have a conference with the President-elect. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 163 

They wished to put before him the kind of legislation that 
would be required to carry out the Social programme which 
they had been largely responsible for having embodied in 
the Democratic and Progressive platforms. I told them 
I did not see how the President could do much in this 
direction. ^lost of their plans called for state legislation, 
and I pointed out that it would be better and more effec- 
tive for them to meet Governor Sulzer. I offered to give 
a dinner at my house in New York, at which Governor 
Sulzer would be the guest of honour, and I told them they 
might give me a list of the people whom they wished to 
have meet him. The list they gave me included the best- 
known social workers, such people as Homer Folks, Owen 
R. Lovejoy, Mary E. Dreier, Lilhan D. Wald, John A. 
Kingsbury, and Edward T. Devine. 

Sulzer accepted my invitation readily enough. One 
reason for his acceptance became apparent when I heard 
that the state printer at the moment was pressing him for 
the manuscript of his inaugural address, which he had not 
yet written, though it was already late in December. 
When the address was delivered some days later it em- 
bodied in his own language many of the thoughts and 
proposals that were put forward that evening by the 
social workers. 

After the dinner the party adjourned to the library, and 
there I seated Sulzer in a big carved oak chair, facing the 
others, who sat in a semicircle before him. Each of the 
guests in turn made a presentation to the Governor of 
the situation and needs in the field of social reform in 
which he or she was an expert. These were really splen- 
did expositions of the improvements required in the health, 
child-labour, tenement-house, and other laws. When 
Sulzer made his reply to their addresses, I was astonished 
at the grasp he displayed of the principles involved in 
these reforms, and at the eagerness with which he em- 



164 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

braced their advocacy. It really seemed as if he were 
going to go heart and soul into making a record of pro- 
gressive legislation for his administration. 

I was not less delighted when, after a conference a few 
weeks later with Messrs. Folks, Kingsbury, and Devine, 
concerning the most important of these reforms — the 
drastic revision of the health laws — the four of us went 
up as a delegation to see Sulzer, and secured his hearty 
support. The situation was, that the health laws of New 
York State were being administered by five or six hun- 
dred health boards in the various villages, and an investi- 
gation had shown that a very substantial percentage of 
the health commissioners in these places were undertakers. 
We proposed a centralized state health board headed by 
a state health commissioner. Sulzer agreed to back the 
plan. He went further and said to me: "What's more, 
you may name the Health Commissioner." We there- 
upon returned to New York, and my friends drew up a 
draft of new laws to regulate the public health. This 
codification was enacted by the legislature at Sulzer's in- 
sistence, and has since been adopted by more than thirty 
states. We agreed that Dr. Hermann M. Biggs was the 
ideal man for Commissioner, and I asked Sulzer to ap- 
point him. He then hedged on his promise and selected 
another man, though Dr. Biggs was later appointed and 
made a national reputation in the office. Sulzer did, 
however, make good a part of his promise. He felt it 
necessary, for political reasons, to appoint two or three 
men of his own choice to the State Board of Health, but 
he allowed us to name the majority membership. 

Sulzer's administration thus started auspiciously. He 
saw, what every other shrewd observer also saw: the 
dazzling opportunity which lay before any politician who 
stood out boldly for the people as against the bosses, and 
who could embody this independent position in practical 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 1G5 

measures of reform. The lesson of Roosevelt's career 
had just been confirmed by Wilson's. But the experi- 
ences I am now narrating ultimately convinced me that 
Sulzer did not have the courage which had carried these 
two men of eminence. He "played politics," and got no 
further than an unconvincing imitation of their methods. 
He continued to assure us Independents, on the one hand, 
that he was whole-heartedly converted, and that he had 
broken entirely with his past. But later we found out 
that he was at the same time assuring his friends in Tam- 
many that "I am the same old Bill." He tried to imitate 
Roosevelt's success in another direction, in building up a 
personal "machine" in New York State by coquetting 
with the up-state Independent Democrats, to whom he 
allotted a share of the patronage which he controlled. 

Ultimately, of course, both sides found him out for 
what he was. When they did, the Independents simply 
dropped him. Tammany, however, exacted a swift and 
terrible vengeance. If discipline were to be maintained 
within the wigwam, not even the appearance of open 
revolt could be tolerated, and Tammany proceeded to 
make a spectacular example of Sulzer. 

Sulzer's first appearance at Albany as Governor was 
not, however, a shock to Tammany alone. Albany is like 
Washington on a small scale. The Governor's mansion 
was, traditionally, not only the office of the chief executive 
of the state, it had been likewise the social centre around 
which revolved a sort of court of elite society. Heretofore 
every governor of New York had been a very presentable 
social figure, and they had. all maintained at the executive 
mansion an atmosphere of social distinction. Sulzer rudely 
overturned this tradition. He wished in every possible 
way to dramatize his role of "friend of the people." Con- 
sequently, he always referred to the executive mansion as 
the "People's House," and ostentatiously invited all who 



166 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

would to come and call upon him in it. The staid Knicker- 
bocker society of Albany was aghast at the sight of 
throngs of what they termed "the rabble" invading the 
hitherto exclusive chambers of the executive mansion. 
Great was their anger toward Governor Sulzer. They, 
too, cherished hopes for vengeance. 

In the meantime, Sulzer was having other difficulties in 
maintaining his role of independence. One day he tele- 
phoned me to come up at once to his rooms at the 
Waldorf-Astoria. He had a matter of great importance 
to discuss, he said, and we could talk it over at luncheon. 
When I arrived, I found him in great excitement. 

"The powers," he exclaimed, meaning Tammany, "are 
trying to force me to appoint a certain man chairman of 
the Public Service Commission, and I am refusing to do 
it because I don't think it a proper appointment. But 
they are getting very angry about it, and I don't know 
what to do." 

I told him there was only one thing he could do and that 
was to continue to refuse to appoint him. 

"But," complained Sulzer, "it means my poHtical death 
if I don't name him." 

"Well," I said, "then you are going to political death 
anyway. Because as surely as you yield to them, the 
public at large will become even bitterer enemies than 
Tammanj^ On the other hand, if you at least prove to 
the public that you have the nerve to stand out against 
the organization, they will come to the rescue and stand 
firmly behind you." 

As we talked, a Tammany leader was announced. 
Sulzer had him ushered into his bedroom while we con- 
tinued our talk in the parlour. Evidently the Tammany 
leader was waiting for his final decision, for at length 
Sulzer said: 

"Very well, I will go in there." 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 167 

He went into the bedroom and was gone for more than 
an hour. I had to wait so long that I grew impatient and, 
ringing for a waiter, ordered my luncheon. As I ate, I 
could hear the voices through the closed door, and though 
I could not distinguish the conversation, it was violent, for 
occasionally I could hear an explosion of vocal fireworks 
in the bedroom. When at length Sulzer came out, his 
manner was one of excited bravado. Throwing back the 
tails of his Prince Albert coat and assuming the Henry 
Clay pose, he exclaimed, "Well, I have done it! I have 
actually defied them!" 

And he added: 

"I did it on your account and by your advice. And now 
you have got to do me a favour." 

When I asked what this meant, he rephed: "It may 
come to this: Murphy may press me so hard to name 
somebody else whom I ought not to nominate that I may 
have to appoint you yourself as chairman of the Com- 
mission. Even Murphy would not dare to prevent the 
confirmation of the appointment of the chairman of the 
Finance Committee of the Democratic National Com- 
mittee. Will you accept the position if that situation 
arises?" 

This was a critical test of my willingness to serve the 
cause of good government, as I had every reason to sus- 
pect that President Wilson would soon offer me a position 
of a much greater distinction in the National Government. 
But I was so wrapped up in the hope of achieving political 
regeneration in New York, as we had just achieved it in 
the nation, that I did not hesitate. 

"If I can keep you from having to obey orders from 
Murphy in making your appointments, I will even do 
that," I replied. 

Sulzer thanked me warmly and then added : 

"Now you must do me one other favour." 



168 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

"What is that?" I inquired. 

*'You have got to make a speech at my birthday dinner 
down at the Cafe Boulevard to-morrow night. I want 
you to show that you are back of me." 

"Governor," I rephed, "I will make that speech; but 
let me tell you now, bluntly, that I shall say there what I 
have told you to-day, that I shall continue to back you 
only so long as you adhere to your promises to us to be 
independent." 

"I don't care what you say," said Sulzer, "if only you 
will come down and prove that you are behind me." 

This dinner was quite a dramatic occasion. The old 
Cafe Boulevard was the Delmonico of the East Side, 
and it had been the scene of many a Tammany festivity. 
Sulzer here was among his own people, and this gave him 
the feeling of confidence which came from having his 
friends around him. The dinner was in celebration of 
his fiftieth birthday. People well known in many walks 
of life crowded the tables. Sulzer was personally still 
popular, and the feeling of the occasion was one of cordial 
good wishes. Not only were his life-long friends of the 
East Side among those present, but such other Demo- 
cratic friends as Senator Stone of Missouri, Frank I. Cobb 
of the New York World, John D. Crimmins, and myself; 
and even representative Republicans, such as District 
Attorney (later Governor) Whitman, Judge Otto Rosal- 
sky, Louis Marshall, and Samuel S. Koenig, were among 
the diners. 

I resolved to take no chances of spoiling my speech, 
which I had prepared rapidly but with great care the 
day before. So when I arose, I read it. This address 
made a local sensation at the moment. It was called by 
the papers "the wish-bone speech." As it was very brief 
and as it had some effect on the political situation at that 
time, I think it worth quoting. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 169 

"Governor," I said, "you have wished, and have been 
training all your life to be a leader of the people ; you have 
wished it so long that now it has become true, and we want 
to see your wish-bone converted into back-bone, for you 
will need much of it. 

"You are now at the head of a mighty host that is march- 
ing onward in the fight for good government. Picture to 
yourself the thousands behind you in a solid phalanx, 
crowding you on so that you cannot turn back. If you 
fail them as a leader the march will still proceed, and some- 
one else will be chosen. 

"The combat is to be fought to a finish. The people 
have discovered how near they were to losing their Democ- 
racy, how both great parties were in danger of falling into 
the control of designing self-seekers who were determined 
to secure control of the Government for their own selfish 
ends. At Baltimore it was determined that they could 
not control the National Government. It was you who, 
as presiding officer of the Convention, gave INIr. Bryan 
the opportunity to throw the victory to ]Mr. Wilson. 

"At Syracuse, you were nominated in an open conven- 
tion to lead the Democrats of this state. We look to you 
to be the Governor of the Empire State, and not to be 
the agent of undisclosed principals who hide themselves 
from the public view. They can no longer govern this 
country, state or city; and no office-holder needs to be 
responsible to or afraid of them. 

"There is but one master who will last forever and to 
whom all ought to bow, and that is enlightened public 
opinion. If you enlist under its banner, you can proceed 
unmolested by petty tyranny, and the harder you fight, 
the greater will be the army that will enlist in your cause 
and under your leadership. You are to be envied the 
opportunity you have to advance the cause of good govern- 
ment. It is not an easy task; your opponents are numer- 



170 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ous and trained in the art of spiking their opponents' 
guns; but j^ou must stand up, plant yourself firmly, say- 
ing: 'Come one, come all. This rock shall fly from its 
firm base as soon as I.' " 

This address, with its unexpected note of blunt warning, 
became the key-note of the evening. The other speakers 
discarded their prepared addresses and spoke in a similar 
vein. Sulzer realized that he had to meet this challenge, 
and in his reply he pledged himself anew to the cause of 
the people. 

"Long ago," he said, "I made a vow to the people that 
in the performance of my duty no influence would control 
me but the dictates of my conscience and my determi- 
nation to do the right — as I see the right — day in and day 
out, regardless of political future or personal conse- 
quences. Have no fear — I will stick at that." 

These were brave words. But Sulzer proved unequal 
to their promise. All he did was to go far enough in the 
surface appearance of independence to rouse the Tiger of 
Tammany to a fury of vengeance. 

Tammany soon found an occasion to carry out this in- 
tention, and they removed Sulzer from his office. This 
act of private vengeance cost Tammany four years of 
control of the city government of New York, for Hen- 
nessy's disclosures made the public eager to administer 
a rebuke to Tammany, and this rebuke took the form of 
electing Mitchel as Mayor. 

The Tiger's opportunity to impeach Sulzer came about 
in this way: When Sulzer filed his sworn statement of 
campaign expenses, Tammany scented some gross dis- 
crepancies and did some shrewd detective work. The 
result was that they discovered that he had not included 
in his list of contributions the $2,500 he had received from 
Jacob H. Schiff, nor the checks of several others, includ- 
ing my own, which amounted in all to many thousands of 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 171 

dollars. By careful investigation they had established 
the fact that he had not applied these moneys to his cam- 
paign expenses, but had deposited them to his personal 
account and used the money as margin with a Wall Street 
broker for stock-market speculation. Thereupon, Tam- 
many leaders in the State Legislature arose in the 
Assembly Chamber and impeached William Sulzer of 
high crimes and misdemeanours. They charged him, 
among other things, with filing a false statement of cam- 
paign expenses, with perjury, and with the suppression of 
testimony; and demanded his dismissal from office. The 
Assembly sustained a motion for his impeachment. When 
I returned from Europe in September, 1913, I found that 
his trial was in progress, and I was summoned as a witness 
to testify before the High Court of Impeachment. 

It would take the pens of a INIacaulay and a Swift to do 
justice to this modern burlesque of the trial of Warren 
Hastings. I use the term "burlesque" in no sense of dis- 
respect toward the Court and its setting. The dignity of 
the proceedings was almost awe-inspiring. But the de- 
fendant lent no such exalted interest to the event as did 
the romantic figure of Warren Hastings. The offences 
of Hastings had, at least, the dramatic merits of their 
magnitude. Burke's indictment of him was a recital of 
crimes worthy of the treatment of a Greek tragic poet. 
Hastings's accusers were distressed queens, pillaged treas- 
ures, and suffering peoples. Burke's plea for a verdict 
was an appeal to the conscience of mankind. 

By this comparison the Sulzer impeachment was a 
travesty, the defendant a petty misdemeanant, and the 
purpose of the trial a spiteful vengeance on a rebellious 
henchman. The setting of the Court, however, gave the 
event a fictitious dignity. The Senate Chamber at Albany 
had been altered for the occasion by the state architect. 
A lofty seat had been provided for the presiding judge of 



172 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the High Court of Impeachment, Judge Edgar M. 
Cullen, who, as chief judge of the Court of Appeals, pre- 
sided eoc officio. Below him was a long seat for the asso- 
ciate judges. Ascending tiers of seats were provided for 
the forty-four members of the State Senate who, with the 
judges of the Court of Appeals, constituted the High 
Court of Impeachment. Behind Judge Cullen's chair 
the entire wall of the room was hung with a dark red 
velvet curtain in the centre of which was emblazoned the 
coat of arms of New York in gold embroidery, flanked on 
either side by national emblems. At one side of the court 
room, places were provided for the "Fourth Estate," the 
gentlemen of the press, to whom Burke had made so 
eloquent an appeal on the greater historical occasion. The 
public balcony, which at the Hastings trial had been 
crowded with the Sarah Siddonses and the haut ton of 
London, was, here at Albany, crowded with the vengeful 
Knickerbocker aristocracy, who had come to gloat in 
triumph over the final discomfiture of the demagogic 
desecrator of the executive mansion. The Edmund Burke 
of the Sulzer impeachment was Edgar T. Brackett, late 
of the New York Senate. Alton B. Parker and John B. 
Stanchfield were the chief counsel of the managers for the 
Assembly which had presented the indictment, but Brack- 
ett was the man who made the oratorical impeachment. 
Sulzer stood upon the prerogative of early precedents and 
refused to make a personal appearance before the Court. 
In compliance with a judicial ruling he abstained from 
functioning as Governor while the trial was in progress 
and, instead of facing his accusers, spent his time in a 
frantic but futile effort to make political combinations 
that would save him. 

Witness after witness testified to Sulzer's solicitation 
of contributions for which he had made no accounting. 
My testimony was only confirmatory of a mass of evidence 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 173 

elicited from men of eminence like Jacob H. Schiff and 
many others. I appeared before the Court on September 
24, 1913. Replying to questions from the prosecutor, I 
repeated the conversation I had had with Sulzer when I 
gave him my check for $1,000, and I also testified to the 
fact that on the day I returned from Europe, Governor 
Sulzer had telephoned me, "If you are going to testify I 
hope you will be easy with me" — ^to which I answered that 
I would testify to the facts. 

The verdict of the court was "Guilty." Sulzer was 
shorn of his high office. His proud hopes, fostered by the 
soothsayer's prophecy, were sadly broken. Knickerbocker 
society had its revenge; the "People's House" became 
again the executive mansion. And Tammany had its ven- 
geance; it had crushed its rebel henchman and given all 
other potential malcontents a spectacular object lesson. 



CHAPTER X 

THE SOCIAL SIDE OF CONSTANTINOPLE 

THE Senate confirmed my appointment as Ambas- 
sador to Turkey on September 4, 1913. Soon 
afterward I went to Washington to familiarize 
myself with the duties of my office and to receive my in- 
structions. A new Ambassador is allowed thirty days 
for this purpose. Usually, he spends them in the State 
Department, taking a sort of course of intensive training. 
I did not take the full month allowed me. The Chief of 
the Division of Near Eastern Affairs took me in hand, 
and in a series of conversations outlined to me, first, the 
duties, prerogatives, and privileges of an Ambassador; 
and, second, a general survey of existing relations between 
Turkey and the United States. Then several hours were 
occupied in studying the methods of keeping the accounts 
of the Embassy, and of handling its funds. 

I found this period of preparation intensely interesting. 
It was to be crowned in October, upon a second visit to 
Washington, by an official call on the Secretary of State. 
I looked forward to this visit with great expectations. 
Alas for the illusions which a day can wreck! William 
Jennings Bryan was the Secretary of State. He knew no 
more about our relations with Turkey than I did. The 
long-looked-for instructions were an anti-climax. They 
were, in full, as follows : 

"Ambassador," he said, "when I made my trip through 
the Holy Land, I had great difficulty in finding Mount 
Beatitude. I wish you would try to persuade the Turkish 
Government to grant a concession to some Americans to 

174 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 175 

build a macadam road up to it, so that other pilgrims may 
not suffer the inconvenience which I did in attempting to 
find it." 

Thus fortified by the Secretary's complete programme 
for my Ambassadorial task, I set forward to the White 
House for a farewell call upon President Wilson. He 
bade me a hearty God-speed, and in parting gave me an in- 
junction which enabled me to save many lives in the next 
three years. "Remember," he said, "that anything you 
can do to improve the lot of your co-religionists is an act 
that will reflect credit upon America, and you may count 
on the full power of the Administration to back you up." 

Fortunately for the success of my mission, I had a most 
enlightening conference in New York before I left. At 
the suggestion of jNIr. Alfred E. Marling, who was one of 
the trustees of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, I had an interview at that great centre of missionary 
activity, 156 Fifth Avenue, with a large group of earnest 
and able men, who could speak with authority on the 
problems I should confront in the East. I learned that 
five of these men were to cross the Atlantic at the same 
time I should be crossing. These were Doctors Arthur 
Judson Brown, James L. Barton, Charles Roger Wat- 
son, Dr. Mackaye, and Bishop Arthur Selden Lloyd. 
These men were the leaders of the Foreign Mission Boards 
of the Presbyterian, Congregational, United Presbyter- 
ian, Methodist, and Protestant Episcopal Churches. One 
of them. Doctor Barton, had himself been a missionary in 
Turkey, and had also acted as President of the Protestant 
College at Harpoot. Another, Doctor Watson, had been 
a missionary in the Turkish Protectorate of Egypt, and 
his parents had been missionaries for half a century at 
Cairo. 

I had engaged passage for Europe on the Imperator, 
but when I learned that these five men were saihng at 



176 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

nearly the same time on the George Washington (later 
to become famous as President Wilson's "peace ship") 
to attend a world missionary conference at The Hague, 
I asked them to change their reservations and go ^vith me. 
They were limited in their expense accounts and could not 
change, so, emulating INIohammed, I "went to the moun- 
tain" and changed to their ship. The voyage gave me an 
opportunity to gain from them a fuller picture of the work 
of the mission boards, which was very helpful to me in my 
new task. 

The conversations I had with these men on shipboard 
were a revelation to me. I had hitherto had a hazy notion 
that missionaries were sort of over-zealous advance agents 
of sectarian religion, and that their principal activity was 
the prosel}i:ing of behevers in other faiths. To my sur- 
prise and gratification, these men gave me a very 
different picture. In the first place, their cordial cooper- 
ation with one another was evidence of the disappearance 
of the old sectarian zeal. They were, to be sure, pro- 
foundly concerned in converting as many people as they 
could to what they sincerely believed to be the true faith. 
But I found that, along with this ambition, Christian mis- 
sionaries in Turkey were carrying forward a magnificent 
work of social service, education, philanthropy, sanitation, 
medical healing, and moral uplift. They were, I dis- 
covered, in reality advance agents of civihzation. As 
representatives of the denominations which supported 
them, they were maintaining several hundred American 
schools in the Levant, and several full-fledged colleges, of 
which three, at least, deserve to rank with the best of the 
smaller institutions of higher learning in the United 
States. They maintained, also, several important hos- 
pitals. And, as a part of their purely religious function, 
they were bringing a higher conception of Christianity 
to the millions of submerged Christians in the Turkish 



SOCIAL COXSTAXTIXOPLE 177 

Empire, who, but for them, would have been left to 
practise their religion without the inspiration of the 
modern thought of the West, which has so vastly widened 
its spiritual significance. 

As my wife and youngest daughter, Ruth, could not 
accompany me, I took -vWth me my daughter Helen, her 
husband, Mr. ^lortimer J. Fox, and their two sons Henry 
and Mortimer. We visited London, Paris, and Vienna 
on our way to Constantinople, and at each of these capitals 
I paid my respects not only to the American Ambassador, 
but to the resident Turkish plenipotentiary as well. In 
doing this I had in mind two things: first, to accustom 
myself to the looks of an embassy from within, as I had 
to that date never been in an embassy building in any 
country; and second, to secure some hints upon the char- 
acter of the government to which I was accredited, in 
advance of my first formal contact w^ith it. At last, on 
November 27, 1913, we rolled into the railroad station at 
Constantinople. 

jNIy first impression of the famous old capital of Asia- 
in-Europe was of a moving sea of silk hats. The station 
platform seemed populated entirely with frock-coated 
gentlemen buried under these chimney-like black head- 
pieces. After some confusion, human personalities began 
to emerge from under them, and to individualize them- 
selves as real people with proper names, and a rational 
relationship to myself as another human being. The first 
to greet me was Mr. Hoffman Phillip, who as Conseiller 
and First Secretary of the Embassy had acted as charge 
d'affaires during ]Mr. Rockhill's visit to the L'nited States. 

He introduced me to the others, and after a somewhat 
bewildering round of handshakings, Phillip, the Foxes, 
and I stepped into a carriage and were driven to the 
Pera Palace Hotel, where Phillip gave us a Thanksgiv- 
ing dinner. 



178 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

The Embassy at Constantinople is a handsome, marble, 
three-story structure, set in a garden surrounded by a 
high wall, and overlooking the Golden Horn. Often 
during my first days there I would find myself humming 
the old refrain, "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls." There 
were, to be sure, no "vassals and serfs by my side"; but I 
had more useful assistants in my official staff. Besides 
Mr. Phillip, there were second and third secretaries, and 
A. K. Schmavonian, the Turkish legal adviser of the 
Embassy. He was the permanent attache — the inter- 
preter — and was, besides, the custodian of the Embassy's 
traditions. He knew every American interest in Turkey, 
had carried on for years the correspondence with the con- 
suls and the missionaries, and hence was an invaluable 
storehouse of information. He knew, also, all the Turkish 
officials ; the ramifications of, the Turkish governmental 
departments; the names and characteristics of the leaders 
of the recent revolution; and, of course, he was versed in 
the niceties of diplomatic custom. 

Soon after my arrival I observed a curious phenomenon 
concerning the position of an ambassador. The instinc- 
tive ambition of the attaches led them to try to keep the 
Ambassador from taking an active hand in the work of 
the Chancery. It was explained to me with great so- 
lemnity, that the business office of the Embassy was not 
like other business offices ; that its operations were so -in- 
volved in delicacies of diplomatic usage that none but old 
hands, trained in all their niceties, were competent to 
handle the transaction of its intricate affairs. All details, 
I was informed, should be left to those accustomed to 
handling them. I made short work of this mysterious 
nonsense. Business is business, and details are the sub- 
stance of larger concerns. Therefore, I promptly ac- 
quainted myself with the records of the Embassy for 
several years preceding, and took absolute charge of its 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 179 

functions, as I was in duty bound to do. The mysteries 
faded instantly. Common sense, judgment, and energy 
are the desiderata of all business relationships, and I found 
no barrier in these affairs, because of their so-called diplo- 
matic nature. 

Other American ambassadors have complained to me 
that their subordinates usurped their functions in this 
fashion; and I know of some who have occupied the most 
exalted posts in Europe and never penetrated the mys- 
teries of their Chanceries, and, consequently, never really 
functioned as ambassadors at all. 

As my wife and Ruth had not accompanied me, their 
absence relieved me, for the moment, of social duties, and 
gave me time for a considered survey of the society in 
which I would soon be projected as an active member. I 
realized that much depended upon the first associations 
I should make in that society, and I needed just such an 
opportunity to learn by indirection the composition of 
it, the factions into which it was divided, and the cross 
currents of personality and interest that disturbed it. 

The "diplomatic set" at Constantinople was a little 
world apart. At most, its members numbered a scant 
hundred. It comprised the Grand Vizier, the Premier 
and his Cabinet, and the ambassadors and ministers of 
other governments, with their principal attaches. Oc- 
casionally, there were added to this intimate circle a few 
leading international bankers and merchants and distin- 
guished tourists. But chiefly we consorted with our- 
selves. Our intercourse was a continuous succession of 
luncheons, teas, dinners, and formal state functions. In 
such a constricted society, thrown into such intense com- 
munication, the personal equation was naturally of para- 
mount importance. Ere long, I had occasion to use every 
resource, from social gifts to business experience, to main- 
tain myself in this society of shrewd and cultivated pien. 



180 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

all of whom had the advantage of a life-long training in 
diplomacy and in the intricacies of European statecraft. 

My first concern, therefore, was to appraise their per- 
sonalities. I recalled a piece of wise advice from James 
Stillman the elder, who was one of the cleverest American 
financiers. He told me that when a man confronted a 
new situation, and was not yet sure of his ground, his 
safest course was to impress his adversaries by mystifying 
them. I adapted this advice to the present occasion. I 
realized that the diplomatic corps at Constantinople knew 
much more about me than I knew about any of them, be- 
cause I was the one stranger to them, and they were many 
and all strange to me. I resolved to do, as nearly as I 
could, directly the opposite of what they expected of me. 
For one thing, they had fallen into the European habit of 
imagining that all successful Americans are men of fab- 
ulous wealth, and they credited certain absurd stories 
about my supposed intention to conduct the Embassy on 
a scale of lavish expenditure, designed to make a great 
social impression. Accordingly, I went to the other 
extreme and managed tlie Embassy very modestly. For 
some weeks after my arrival I did not even use an auto- 
mobile,* contenting myself with a carriage and a pair of 
Arabian ponies. 

Further to play the role-of mystifier, I obeyed only the 
letter of the custom which prescribes that a new Ambas- 
sador shall call upon the other aihbassadors after he has 
been presented to the Sovereign. They are supposed to 
return this call, and thereafter the newcomer is expected 
to make the advances to his elders toward a more intimate 
and workable acquaintance. Instead, I remained at the 
Embassy and devoted myself to the business of the 
Chancery and did some watchful waiting. 

These tactics were rewarded by an opportunity to enter 
the society of the diplomatic corps under circumstances 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 181 

that gave me the advantage. One day the local corre- 
spondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung called upon me at 
the Embassy. This was Dr. Paul Weitz, who had been 
a resident of Turkey for more than twenty-five years, 
knew all the officials, spoke the language, and understood 
the subtleties of Turkish psychology. He was, in reahty, 
an unofficial attache of the Embassy and a secret agent 
of the German Government. Dr. Weitz opened the con- 
versation. 

"Mr. Ambassador," he said, "I have gotten the impres- 
sion that you are a man of direct methods. For this rea- 
son I, too, shall use the direct method. Frankly, I have 
come as the emissary of the German Ambassador and the 
Austrian Ambassador, with whom I had luncheon this 
very day. You were the principal topic of conversation. 
These gentlemen are puzzled by your attitude and they 
are curious to learn your true character. They have 
commissioned me to find out these things for them, and 
I have preferred to come and ask you bluntly rather than 
to follow my usual method of finding out by indirection. 
What is your real attitude? Are you by preference a 
recluse, or are you playing a game?" 

"I am glad," I replied, "that you have come to me per- 
sonally with these questions, especially because it gives me 
the opportunity to send a direot message to your princi- 
pals. Please be good enough to tell them for me that I 
have made it a li£e-long practice never to make the first 
advances. I have always waited for the advances to come 
from the other side. Therefore, you-may tell "Their Ex- 
cellencies" that it is for them to decide whether thev wish 
their relationship with me to continue to be one of formal 
diplomatic exchanges, or a frank, man-to-man friendship. 
If they prefer the latter ^ I shall be delighted to meet them 
halfway, but they must cover the first half." 

Dr. Weitz readily agreed to carry this message, and he 



182 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

was so pleased with the frankness of my conversation that 
he made no conceahnent of his own position. He went on 
to tell me that he was a confidential adviser to the German 
ambassadors, and frequently was commissioned to carry 
on unofficial negotiations in which, for reasons of delicacy 
or of policy, it was not advisable either that the Ambassa- 
dor should appear in person, or that he should make use 
of one of his official family. He explained to me that the 
reason he was used in this capacity was his intimate ac- 
quaintance with Turkish life and officials, and he offered 
to undertake similar commissions for me at any time I 
might care to make use of him. For obvious reasons, I 
never availed myself of the offer. 

Dr. Weitz faithfully repeated my message to the Ger- 
man and Austrian ambassadors who afterward told me 
that they were greatly delighted with it. The very next 
afternoon. Baron Wangenheim paid me a call; and the 
following morning, his Austrian colleague, Marquis Palla- 
vicini, arrived to improve my acquaintance. They both 
greeted me in the spirit of my message, and we entered at 
once upon an acquaintanceship which removed the for- 
mality of an official relation. Both of them were very 
useful to me during my first weeks in Constantinople. 
The Marquis was the doyen of the diplomatic corps. " He 
was a nobleman of ancient family, had grown old in the 
diplomatic service, and was an authority on every point 
of diplomatic usage, from the most subtle phrasing of a 
threat of war to the refinements of precedence in placing 
guests at table at a diplomatic dinner. In this latter 
direction, indeed, he was invaluable to me in teaching me 
the relative rank of the bewildering array of officers and 
title holders among my visitors. 

Baron Wangenheim I have described at great length in 
my earlier volume, "Ambassador Morgentljau's Story." 
Unhke Pallavicini, who was quiet, formal, conventional. 



SOCIAL COlSrSTANTINOPLE 183 

and a typical diplomat of the old school, Wangenheim was 
a perfect representative of Prussia. He was not a native 
of Prussia — but his bearing was that of an excitable Hin- 
denburg. He was a man of great stature, in the prime 
of life, overflowing with physical vitality, energetic in per- 
son, opinionated and positive in manner, voluble and ag- 
gressive in conversation, somewhat flirtatious, proud, 
overbearing — he was Prussia and modern Germany em- 
bodied. 

After Pallavicini and Wangenheim had broken the ice, 
I speedily made the acquaintance of the other members 
of the diplomatic corps, and their characters emerged in 
my mind in sharp definition. Sir Louis Mallet, the Brit- 
ish Ambassador, was a fine type of English gentleman. 
He exhibited 'the quiet force and cultivation which one 
naturally expects from a member of the English upper 
classes. Though a bachelor, his establishment was one of 
the most magnificent in Constantinople. Turkey has al- 
ways be'en a* vital point in British policy, and the British 
Government has spared no pains to make its public ap- 
pearance there correspond with the splendour and import- 
ance of the British Empire. 

The French Ambassador was M. Bompard, the Rus- 
sian was Michel de Giers. These men also adequately 
embodied their respective countries, the one in its ideals 
of polished politeness and clear intellectual grasp, the 
other in its ideals of imperial pride and the sense of power. 

Meeting these men at luncheon; dining with them and 
their ladies at gorgeous evening functions, where the 
splendour of the men's uniforms, the brightness of the 
women's costumes, and the gayety of the young couples 
made a lively scene of light-hearted inconsequentiality ; it 
was hard to realize that they were, in truth, acting the part 
of expectant legatees of a friendless dying man — sitting at 
tea in his parlour, and waiting for his last gasp as a signal 



184 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

for a scramble to divide his property among themselves. 
They frankly told me (though of course not in these 
words) that this was their position. In their eyes the 
Sick Man of Europe, so long the diseased invalid among 
the nations, was now really dying. They had no hesita- 
tion in discussing their ambitions regarding his property. 
Giers comported himself already as if Russia had actu- 
ally attained her age-old vision of capturing Constanti- 
nople — as if he were the Governor of Russia's new capital 
city. Sir Louis Mallet did not conceal the interest which 
his government had in everything that tended to insure 
the safety of the Suez Canal. Bompard was deeply con- 
cerned to secure more concessions for French capital in 
Turkey. Even the Greek Minister talked with confi- 
dence of an approaching Hellenic confederation which 
should embrace Smyrna and part of the Asian hinterland. 
There was, indeed, considerable reason for their hopes. 
The revolutionary party in Turkey, under the name of the 
Union and Progress Party, had overthrown the Govern- 
ment and had taken possession of the country in the name 
of the people. Abdul Hamid, whom Gladstone, for his 
atrocious crimes, had dubbed "Abdul the Damned," was 
now shorn of his power, and was a prisoner in a palace, 
almost within sight of the American Embassy. His 
throne was now occupied by a nominal successor, his 
brother, Mohammed V. This good-humoured weakling, 
however, enjoyed only the shadow of power and none of 
its substance. His brother, fearful of a plot to overthrow 
him, had caused his successor to be reared in a manner 
that totally unfitted him for the exercise of authority. 
He had kept him secluded from society, had not permitted 
him to learn even the rudiments of history and statecraft, 
and had enfeebled his intellect and character by con- 
stantly exposing him to the temptations of self-indul- 
gence. He had placed before the Heir Apparent all the 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 185 

pleasures of life; had supplied him with countless wives, 
luxurious food, rich wines, and all the other ministers of 
sensual enjoyment. Reared in such atmosphere, he had 
grown up and passed the prime of life, ignorant of Gov- 
ernment affairs and without any chance to develop his 
character. Socially, of course, he was a charming gentle- 
man, but as a ruler, he was hopelessly incompetent. 

He was, indeed, merely the figurehead of a govern- 
ment whose substantial ministers were the aggressive, self- 
made leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress. 
These were men of native shrewdness, character, and cour- 
age. Their political leader was Talaat Bey, a great hulk 
of a man, who had begun life in the humble capacity of 
porter in a village railroad station, and who had advanced 
to the limits of his social prospects when he had achieved 
the dignity of a telegraph operator in the same station. 
By sheer force of natural genius, however, he had become 
a political power, and after the revolutionists had sprung 
their coup d'etat, he soon rose to be their leader. With 
their success, he had leaped immediately to the dazzling 
eminence of a Cabinet position, and was then the chief 
of the Cabal that was the real ruler of the Empire. 

The military head of the Young Turks was Enver 
Bey, a handsome and dashing young officer, who had 
studied his profession and cultivated the social graces as 
military attache of the Turkish Embassy at Berlin. He 
was now INIinister of War and in control of the Turkish 
Army — a necessary weapon in the hands of Talaat to 
maintain the Young Turk party in power. Some of my 
foreign colleagues of the diplomatic corps assured me 
that these two men were the real power in Turkey. They 
had seven associates, all men of great influence, and all 
members of the Committee of Union and Progress. 

The personalities of these men, and the drama of 
their conflicting ambitions and intrigues, gradually un- 



186 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

folded themselves before my eyes. It was like sitting at 
the performance of a fascinating play, only this was more 
interesting because it was the reality of life. The actors 
were the representatives of great nations, and upon the 
issue of this dramatic situation rested the fate of millions 
of people. 

The experiences of my first few weeks at Constantinople 
and the intensely interesting sensations they aroused in 
me can best be conveyed to my readers by reproducing a 
few of the letters which I wrote home to America in the 
excitement of these moments. The first I shall quote was 
dated December 23, 1913, and was addressed to my wife 
and youngest daughter: 

I have been so very busy that I have not written for a few days — 
so I will tell you briefly what has happened since. On December 
20th we had our reception, of which I enclose you an account — it was 
really splendid — no one can describe the sensations and thrills. I 
had to be told and made to feel that I was the head and responsible 
man for the property of those great institutions, managed by such 
soulful, disinterested, and altruistic people — it makes our small efforts 
in New York appear insignificant. Think of a small determined 
" band " of Americans revolutionizing with educational means the 
Balkan States — the drops of water they kept a-going for forty or 
more years had the result of wearing away the indifference of the 
Bulgar and roused him. Everybody who is well-informed admits that 
Robert College deserves the credit for the education that has spread 
there. 

At 9:30 Mort and I went to the Scorpion (the gunboat detailed to 
guard the Embassy) and had a royal reception and inspected the boat. 
On Sunday I then went alone to the college — but I feel as though I 
wrote you all this so I'll skip it — if I didn't write it, I'll tell you 
about it when you are here. We had intended to go on the Scorpion, 
but instead we drov-e to the Seven Towers of Jedi Kulet, and walked 
on top of the ramparts and then for one hour along the old wall — 
it was a bewitching sight — the sun was shining brightly, the Marmora 
made up the background, and the twenty or thirty towers along the 
wall in various stages of decay, with the moat alongside, made a 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 187 

never-to-be-forgotten impression on us all. As usual, Mortie took a 
number of pictures and Abdullah guarded us most carefully. It 
takes this kind of absorption of the history of a country to teach one 
what these people really are. This city is unquestionably the most 
favoured by nature of any I have ever seen. It excels New York 
and San Francisco. 

On our way home, we stopped to inspect the Kahri Jeh Janisi 
Mosque — the oldest in C. — it was formerly a Greek Church and the 
paintings of Christ, Saint Mark, the old Bible heroes, and angels, 
etc., are still here in mosaic — much finer than in the San Marco in 
Venice. We were shown through by an old Turk who could give 
half-intelligent descriptions of the mosaics, etc., in English and 
German. We wended through many narrow little streets, inhabited 
largely by Greeks, and it was a most interesting sight. It was 
nearly two when we sat down to dinner and none of us complained. 

On Monday I had a great day. In the morning, representatives of 
the Austrian Kultur Gemeinde called to invite me to attend their 
synagogue and visit their school; they instruct about 300 children. 
I agreed to do so. I took my first meal away from the house at 
Tokatlian's — the best restaurant here — had Schmavonian with me. 
At two, we were at the Finance Office for an interview with Talaat 
Bey — who is acting Secretary of Finance as well as Secretary of the 
Interior, and the strongest and most powerful man in Turkey at pres- 
ent. I am already on good terms with the men in power. We had 
coffee and cigarettes four times that p. m. We next called on 
General Izzett — he wore a shabby uniform, spoke German, and 
was really disconsolate — they are very frank people if they talk 
at all — he made some very confidential communications to me. 
The rumour or hope has gotten around that I may prove their 
Moses who will lead them out of their difficulties. Let us hope so; 
I'll try anyhow. Next we called on Colonel Djemal, the newly ap- 
pointed Minister of Public Works. I tried to dodge the coffee — but 
he said a call in Turkey without coffee is no call. He was of a hope- 
ful temper and rather dapper. Then we called on Osman Mar- 
dighian, the Postmaster General. He speaks good English and is 
very able — devotes his time to administrative works. When I got 
to the office, I had to dictate a few despatches and say good-bye to 
Mr. Phillip, who is going on a four weeks' leave of absence. At 5 
o'clock, the Grand Rabbi and his Secretary came — he is a very intel- 
ligent, nice, youngish man of forty or so — he thinks he has the Red 



188 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ticket settled, but has not and I shall have to help in disposing of it. 
While he was upstairs, Helen discussed the "Wliite Slave traffic — 
babies in the Hospitals, etc., etc. She really does well at the tea 
table. It is a picture to see one of those tea scenes. Helen, Chief 
Rabbi (addressed as His Eminence, as he ranks with the Church 
dignitaries of the rank of Cardinal), Sir Edwin Pears, Sir Henry 
Woods Pasha, Rev. Mr. Frew, the Rabbi's Secretary, Schmavonian, 
Mort, and I ; and I have to listen to French and fortunately am be- 
ginning to understand it. They left at 7 — I worked at those tele- 
grams until 7:30 — then went to bed for a nap and over-slept, not 
wakening until 8:25, so that we reached the British Embassy at 8:40, 
the last of the guests ! You can't imagine my feelings as I was 
ushered into that room in which were thirty other guests including 
the Grand Vizier, Talaat Bey and three other Cabinet Ministers, the 
Wangenheims, D'Ankerswaerd and other Sirs and Ladies, and had 
them all look me over — when 

" The American Ambassador " 
was announced. I felt, "is it I or not.^" Then, "Mr. and Mrs. 
Fox " were announced. And then, " Diner est servi. " I took in 
Madame D'Ankerswaerd. Escorted her to her seat and then went 
to the other side of the table where I was seated next to Baroness 
Wangenheim, a fine, good looking, typically aristocratic German — a 
charming conversationalist. She is W.'s second wife — he divorced 
his first. W. is a great personal friend of the Emperor. Sir Louis 
Mallet, the English Ambassador, sat on the other side of Baroness W. 
After dinner we smoked and drank coffee and talked to others than 
our table companions, while fifty or sixty others gathered for a dance. 
Such a sight! And to think that we are part of it — Young Princes, 
Barons, Sirs, and Americans from the Embassies, etc., and lots of 
Turks and Egyptians, etc. I shall never forget it. Helen sat right 
opposite me — between Baron Wangenheim, all be-decorated, and 
Colonel Djemal (Turk) in full uniform. I talked with Baroness 
Moncheur — we have struck up a nice friendship — with Marquis 
Pallavicini — Talaat Bey, and Miss Wangenheim, etc., etc., until about 
12, when Wangenheim asked me to play bridge with him, a Turk, and 
a Greek banker — which I did until 1 :30, when the dancing was over 
and they all went in for supper, etc. (I went home) and then they 
danced again until 2:30 or so. I thoroughly enjoyed it, I am not 
overstating when I repeat what I said in a previous letter — I am 
very glad I came. 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 189 

To-day — at 11 — a call from the Bulgarian Minister. In the after- 
noon I finished my official calls on the Cabinet Ministers — called on 
Mahmoud Pasha of the Marine, Ibrahim Bey — Secretary of Justice, 
the Dutch Minister, and Mrs. McCauley (the wife of the comman- 
der of the Scorpion). 

Mesdames Pallavicini, Bompard, Moncheur, Wangenheim, and 
Willebois are the popular and fine women here, and they are out of 
the ordinary — you will like all of them and they will like you. Pierre 
Loti is wrong, so far as this winter is concerned — we have had no 
cold weather. Yesterday and to-day were delightful — the thermo- 
meter has not been below 45°. 



On the same day as the foregoing, my daughter Helen 
(Mrs. Fox) also wrote her mother a letter which adds 
new touches of colour to some of the scenes described in 
mine. She wrote as follows: 



So much to write about! Yesterday afternoon I had Mme. de 
Willebois and Mme. Eliasco to tea, and after they left (Mme. de 
Willebois is the Dutch Minister's wife), papa sent up word that " His 
Eminence " the Chief Rabbi and his Secretary were here and would 
like tea. They trotted up, and His Eminence is an awfully nice soul, 
garbed in a flowing black gouri and a fez, be-turbaned in white, some- 
thing like a combination of a Greek priest and a Hadja. He is very 
learned, especially about archaeology as related to the Jews, and was 
interesting. In the meantime^ Woods Pasha, Sir Edwin Pears (a 
marvellously interesting man and English lawyer here), and Mr. 
Frew (a Scottish minister who was pastor of the English Church in 
Constantinople) arrived. I kept thinking how interesting they all 
were, but would they leave me any time to dress for dinner! I had 
been to Scutari in the morning, sightseeing with some of the College 
faculty, and had brought them home to luncheon. Mr. Frew left at 
7 :30, and I was so busy trying to make myself gorgeous that I com- 
pletely forgot papa who fell asleep and did not wake up until 8:15. 
The dinner was at 8 :30. Of course, we were all blaming each other 
and not ourselves and tearing around, whistling for coats, servants, 
etc. We finally tore up to the English Embassy at twenty minutes 
to nine. Never in my life have I experienced anything so wonderful. 



190 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

The Embassy is very large and imposing. Two marvellously uni- 
formed cavasses stood at the door inside, where powdered footmen in 
knee breeches, about twenty of them, were also stationed. As we 
came to the stairs, the second Secretary received us and assured us 
we were not late. However, we were the last ! We then took off our 
coats and were ushered into the drawing room, outside of which stood 
a little coloured page dressed like an Egyptian slave. Sir Louis 
Mallet seems awfully nice. He is a bachelor, rather nice looking, 
and very shy and diffident, and wears a monocle. So many people 
came up to greet us. Then dinner was announced. I went down 
with a Turkish member of the Cabinet, and sat in the next to the 
place of honour. Baron von Wangenheim sat on the other side of 
me. I think he likes to flirt. At any rate we chatted in German 
and had quite a gay time together. The table had quantities of roses 
(all from Nice) on it. The only light in the whole room was from 
huge, massive, silver candelabra, standing on mirrors all along the 
table. We had silver dishes and soup plates. The meal was served in 
the usual rapid-fire English style. Papa sat between Lady Crawford 
and Baroness Wangenheim. Everyone goes in according to rank, 
and consequently, usually husbands and wives sit with each other's 
better halves. The Turk ate most heartily and told me afterward he 
didn't know whether he'd get any dinner the next night or not. At 
dinner it was funny — on the other side of the Turk sat Mrs. Nicholson 
(nee Sackville-West), a beauty, and with the most gorgeous emeralds! 
She afterward played poker with five Turks, as her husband informed 
me. My partner told me he hated formal dinners, it was so un- 
comfortable eating in a uniform. After dinner there was dancing, 
and heaps of people were asked for that. I danced quite a bit, but 
was so tired from my terribly busy day that we left at twelve o'clock. 
Papa played bridge and didn't get home until 1 :30. The English 
Embassy is lighted entirely by candles and really the effect is 
wonderfully beautiful. 

Next day — This morning Mme. Elise, the children, and I, ac- 
companied by the ever-present Abdullah (the body guard), went to 
Therepia in a motor to find a house for the summer. It is just 
heavenly. You simply cannot imagine how perfect it is. The houses 
have the most beautiful gardens and are right down on the Bosphorus, 
which is so blue; and from one's windows one looks across at Asia. 
Papa is going some time to decide finally, as this was just a pre- 
liminary survey. We picked violets and a rose, just think of it, on 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 191 

December 22nd ! But it is quite cold at times. The gardens are so 
inviting, and I can just imagine tea parties and all kinds of thrilling 
things happening in them. This afternoon I had two Turkish ladies 
to tea — Halide Edi Hanum and her mother. They came in their 
yashvialcs and we had Mme. Elise serve the tea. Halide is a graduate 
of the College and a real beauty. She is tall and dark, with almond- 
shaped eyes, and has a beautiful complexion; and she is so gentle 
and soft and charming. She speaks in the sweetest voice, and what 
do you think she is doing? Translating Oscar Wilde into Turkish! 
Her mother is the daughter of the sixth wife of a very great Pasha, 
and her grandmother was a Circassian slave girl. The mother can- 
not speak anything but Turkish, and she smoked all the time she was 
here. I gave her some candy and a box of American cigarettes to 
take home. Halide doesn't smoke, and anyway, if she went into a 
ball-room at home she'd create a sensation, she is so charming. You 
simply cannot imagine how lovely it is here and I just relish and 
cherish every moment. Baron von Wangenheim hopes you will take 
a house right next to him this summer. He wants to ride with Ruth. 
Beware, Ruth ! 



A rather amusing incident occurred late in January, 
1914, when upon receiving word that my wife had left 
Vienna for Constantinople, I communicated at once with 
Talaat and told him I wished him to facilitate my inten- 
tion of meeting INIrs. Morgenthau at the boundary of 
Turkey. I told him I proposed to go to Adrianople, the 
point at which her train would enter Turkey, to meet her. 
Talaat's reply was characteristically Turkish: 

"What!" he exclaimed, "going to all that trouble to 
meet one's wife! I never heard of such a thing." 

"I cannot imagine an American," I replied, "failing to 
do it. In mv country, our wives share all their husbands' 
interests, and I should certainly consider myself lacking 
in both respect and affection if I failed to show my wife 
this attention." 

Talaat was frankly bewildered. 



192 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

"In Turkey," he said, "we let our wives come to us, we 
do not go to them." 

As a last resort, he interposed what he intended to be 
an unanswerable objection. 

"Adrianople!" he exclaimed. "It's out of the question. 
There is not even a hotel in the whole city." 

"Very well then," I rephed, "I shall find accommoda- 
tions in a private residence. But to Adrianople I am 
going." 

With this retort, I left him. 

Mr. Schmavonian later went to Talaat and told him 
that I was quite serious in my intention. Talaat then 
sent me word that he would arrange with the Governor of 
Adrianople to entertain me, and that I could dismiss all 
thought of other preparations from my mind. I there- 
fore contented myself with arranging to arrive in Adrian- 
ople in the morning, planning to spend a day there sight- 
seeing, and then joining my wife on the train, which was 
due to come through the following morning at 3 :30 o'clock. 
Imagine my astonishment, therefore, upon arriving at 
Adrianople, to find that the Governor, acting on Talaat's 
orders, had transformed part of the City Hall into a 
hotel for my reception. The office furniture had been re- 
moved and a suite of bedrooms for myself, my son Henry 
(who had now joined me) , and a member of my staff, had 
been freshly furnished, with comfortable beds and bedding 
specially bought for this occasion. One room had been 
fitted up as a kitchen ; another as a dining room. Talaat's 
attentions had gone so far as even to see that we were 
provided with pyjamas, bedroom slippers, and tooth- 
brushes. 

When I arrived at Adrianople, the Governor was at the 
station to meet me, accompanied by a military guard of 
honour. He at once took us in his automobile for a sight- 
seeing tour of the city. I found him a man of great in- 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 193 

telligence — some months later he became a member of the 
Turkish Cabinet at Constantinople. He was especially 
interested in the answers that my son was able to make to 
his numerous questions about American farm machinery, 
which he wished to import for use on his large estate. 

After a very pleasant day we returned to the City Hall 
and there we were tendered a splendid dinner and recep- 
tion. The Governor then told me that the express train 
on which my wife was travelling was reported to be several 
hours late, and that I had as well make myself comfort- 
able by going to bed and resting. He promised to have 
me aroused in plenty of time to meet the train on its ar- 
rival. Accordingly, I made my way to my improvised 
bedroom and was soon asleep. At three o'clock in the 
morning the Governor himself awakened me. He urged 
me to hurry, as he said the train had now made up most of 
its lost time and was due any minute. We were soon 
driving through the chilly streets of Adrianople to the rail- 
road station. Arriving there, we found that the report 
was erroneous and that the train was still two hours late. 
The waiting room was small, very dirty, and unheated. 
It was useless, however, to return to the City Hall, so we 
waited for those two hours in the dimly lighted and evil- 
smelling waiting room, beguiling the time with conversa- 
tion and cups of Persian tea. He was greatly interested 
to find out from me the practical workings of the Ameri- 
can system of government. JVIost of our time was spent 
in questions and answers regarding our elections, with 
their, to him, almost incomprehensible peaceful transitions 
from one group of rulers to another. 

At length the express drew into the station, the mih- 
tary guard was mounted, and the Governor with great 
ceremony escorted me to the train platform. I thanked 
him most heartily for a day unique in my experience. 
Having undertaken with reluctance to facilitate this meet- 



194 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ing of my wife, Talaat had gone to the other extreme and 
had given it an ahnost royal setting. Through his kind- 
ness I was enabled to escort my wife properly to her new 
home in Constantinople. 

Arriving there, she entered at once into the spirit of my 
mission and became of invaluable assistance to me. She 
had looked forward to it as a dreary exile from home and 
friends in a dull and uncivilized community. Instead, 
she soon found, as I had already, that the diplomatic cir- 
'cle was a group of charming people, intellectually stimu- 
lating, and engaged in the fascinating game of high 
politics. She shared as well my intense interest in the work 
of the missionaries, just as she had shared in New York 
my interest in the Bronx House and other works of social 
betterment. She enjoyed, besides, a most unusual oppor- 
tunity that was denied to me, namely, the opportunity to 
study, under the most favourable circumstances, the 
strangely interesting life of the Oriental woman. This 
life was not only very different from the life of Western 
women but was also very different from our preconceived 
ideas of it. Mrs. Morgenthau found, to be sure, that the 
exclusion of Turkish women from masculine society was a 
reahty, but she was astonished on the other hand to learn 
the extent to which the more ambitious ones among them 
had been able to achieve contact with Western thought. 
The plight of these inteUigent women was really tragical. 
They were the pioneers of an epochal social change in 
Turkey, and they were suffering the usual martyrdom of 
pioneering. They had been allowed to acquire the educa- 
tion and ideas, which have so broadened the mental outlook 
of Western women, but the social barrier of custom still 
prevented them from enjoying in practice the advantage 
of its possession. Their husbands sought their intellec- 
tual companions entirely among other men, and contin- 
ued to regard their women as playthings of the harem. 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 195 

They were thus denied the stimulation and enjoyment of 
contact with mascuhne thought and were cut off of course 
from all active participation in practical works, where 
the mind exercises its acquired talents. Doubtless in the 
course of time women in Turkey will be freed from these 
ancient restrictions of custom and will join their Western 
sisters in a full freedom to take an active part in the hfe of 
the world, but their position during the transition period 
is truly pathetic. 

Mrs. Morgenthau came across many cases of this ano- 
malous condition. One of the most striking was in the 
home of the Persian Ambassador. He had married a very 
cultivated French woman. Notwithstanding the liber- 
ality of thought which had permitted him to marry a 
European, he had done so only on the agreement that she 
should become a Mohammedan; and having done so, he 
insisted that she live the life of a JMohammedan woman. 
She had thus stepped from that stirring French society of 
which one of the most outstanding characteristics is the 
almost abnormally important influence exerted by women, 
both in the intellectual life and in public affairs, into a 
society where she was debarred entirely from association 
with men and cut off from all practical relations with out- 
side affairs. When Mrs. INIorgenthau entertained her, or 
any of the native Turkish ladies, at the Embassy, even the 
male servants were kept below stairs and luncheon was 
served by the house-maids. 

So much for the colour of life at the Embassy during 
the first months after my arrival. On the sober business 
side, there was much of equal interest. When the Young 
Turks succeeded to power they had brought with them 
great hope of permanent progress for their country. 
This hope was shared by Liberals not only in Turkey but 
everywhere. The Christian world without felt that at 
last there was a prospect that Moslem government might 



196 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

succeed in treating a Christian population justly. The 
total failure of this party proved again the impossibility of 
true reform among the Turks. This was evident to careful 
observers long before my arrival at Constantinople, but I 
was so ardent in my desire to help them that it took me 
nearly a year to become wholly disillusioned. 

The Young Turks from their accession to power failed 
in every serious task they undertook. They made war 
on the Albanians, with whom the Sultans had compro- 
mised for more than four hundred years. Having been 
trained as professional soldiers they were accustomed to 
the use of force only. They had not the slightest notion 
of democratic political methods or of peaceful conciliation, 
though it was obvious that among the various peoples of 
Turkey peaceful conciliation was the only way of begin- 
ning a united national life. The Young Turks brought 
the dispute with Greece concerning the possession of Crete 
to a crisis. Instead of recognizing the accomplished fact 
in Tripoli they insisted upon retaining control of that prov- 
ince, and Italy declared war. Against the Armenians 
the massacres at Adana were conducted with all the hor- 
rors of the past. The guilty, instead of being punished 
by the Central Government, were exonerated. But the 
greatest failure of all on the part of the so-called Com- 
mittee of Union and Progress was in connection with the 
national legislature. The revolution led the Greeks and 
Armenians to think that a democratic government would 
be estabHshed. But the Young Turks "selected" (not 
"elected") the members of the Chamber of Deputies from 
among their own adherents. 

The Committee of Union and Progress was, in truth, a 
desperate set of men confronted by desperate conditions. 
Therefore they were willing to take the most desperate 
means to retain "Turkey for the Turks," and especially 
Turkey for themselves. Their subsequent actions were 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 197 

all in keeping with this resolve. I was told by my col- 
leagues that business had to be transacted with the Grand 
Vizier. But I found that I could obtain the quickest 
results through Talaat and Enver. JNIy somewhat demo- 
cratic, business-hke methods seemed to appeal to them. 
There were occasions on which I even went so far as to 
deal directly with lesser officials. Some of my experi- 
ences would, I am sure, fill a professional diplomat with 
dismay as regards the future of his calling. 

As I became better acquainted with Talaat, who was 
the real head of the Government, meeting him very often 
at my house and sometimes at the house of the Grand 
Rabbi, he confided to me the great disappointment which 
he and his fellow revolutionists felt with their people. 
Having lived for so many years in a state of subjection, 
the masses seemed completely cowed and did not respond 
in the least to any suggestion of progress or improvement. 
He also blamed the Sheikhs and feudal chiefs who were 
still extorting tributes and using most exasperating meth- 
ods in collecting taxes. The right to collect taxes was, in 
many districts, farmed out to the state bank or to the 
richer inhabitants. They were entitled by law to collect in 
kind 10 per cent, of the crops, but were never satisfied with 
this portion. They would go and measure the crop and 
leave the farms without collecting the taxes. Where- 
upon the poor people, not being permitted to use their 
food and forage, and knowing that they were in the power 
of the tax collector, would implore him for a promj)t set- 
tlement. Often, to prevent starvation, the farmers would 
submit to an exaction of one third of their crop. Talaat 
thought that nothing less than the hanging of a number 
of these men would ever stop the evil practice. He seemed 
to have no notion that a better system of collecting the 
taxes could be instituted. 

During the winter of 1913-14, Talaat and Enver, espe- 



198 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

cially the former, came to me repeatedly for advice. In- 
experienced as they were, their problems were such as to 
test the strength of the ablest statesman of any country. 
The only reason I can give for the fact that they drew close 
to me in the matter of asking advice was that they felt that 
America alone of the larger foreign nations had no pri- 
vate axe to grind as regards her relations with Turkey. 
Feeling the deepest sympathy for all efforts to forward 
the welfare of backward peoples, I did all I could to aid 
them with the best counsel I could offer. 

One opportunity for such assistance presented itself on 
the occasion of the dinner given by the American Cham- 
ber of Commerce for the Levant, on February 22, 1914, 
at which I was invited to make the principal address of the 
evening. Talaat and some of his colleagues were to be 
guests of honour. I felt I could point out to them in my 
address, by indirection, the path along which they might 
lead Turkey to regeneration. To do this, I recapitulated 
the story of America's great moral and material advance- 
ment, interpreting the events in the way which I thought 
would be most intelligible to the Turkish intelligence, and 
suggesting that the Turkish leaders be guided in their 
policy by the lessons of our history. As this speech had 
a considerable effect upon the Turkish Government, and 
as it is, I think, not without interest to Americans them- 
selves, I take the liberty of quoting the substance of it: 

What an achievement it would be if the Young Giant of the West, 
who by strictly attending to his own business has developed into one 
of the greatest and richest nations of the world, could make others 
see the advantages and wisdom of following his example. We rec- 
ognize the difficulty which confronts everyone who tries to prevail 
upon another to benefit by his experience, but perhaps nations, which 
are guided by disinterested patriots who have only the good of the 
people at heart and none of the selfish motives or petty vanities of an 
individual, may be willing, not only to study the history of a success- 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 199 

ful nation, but also to profit by its experiences, and thus save the ex- 
pense and spare the waste caused by experimenting. 

As a diplomat I am " directed by my Government especially to 
refrain from public expressions of opinion upon local political or 
other questions arising within my jurisdiction." These are the exact 
words contained in my Instruction Book, and I am obliged to follow 
them conscientiously. But that does not prevent me, however, from 
telling you what we have done at home to establish and increase our 
commerce and what we are doing to improve it and the conditions of 
our people; and it is for this country, the Balkan States, and Persia 
to determine how much of it can be adopted by them. 

It is just fifty years ago that our country finished one of 
the bloodiest and most expensive internecine wars recorded in history, 
and you all know that the worst strifes are those that are waged be- 
tween brothers. All the southern states had been completely devas- 
tated; a large part of their white male population was killed during the 
war; millions of slaves had been set free and were unprepared to take 
care of themselves and would not work; both the North and the South 
were in a complete state of physical and financial exhaustion. The 
cost of the war exceeded 1,500 million dollars; our Government bonds 
were selling below par and were mostly owned in foreign countries; 
we had just been deprived of the wise leadership of the great 
Abraham Lincoln wlio had been foully murdered. We had fought 
for a principle and had won, but the hatred of the sections for each 
other survived and the great problem was to reconcile the combatants 
to the new conditions and again to absorb into our commercial and 
business activities the hundreds of thousands of members of the dis- 
banded army and to have our communities resume their normal con- 
dition and bring about a reconstruction of the southern states. We 
were confronted by a tremendous problem, and it took wise statesman- 
ship, great grit, patient toil, and unswerving enthusiasm born from 
an absolute and abiding faith in the future to solve it. We had only 
35,000 miles of railroads and many of these traversed the devastated 
country. I say " only," because to-day we have more than 250,000 
miles of railroad which have brought into easy communication with 
the large markets of our country all our developed farms and mines, 
etc., and have given the country four transcontinental routes. We 
had a population of 3t millions which has now grown to 
more than 95 millions, of which 19 millions attend our public and two 
millions our private schools, and 320,000 attend 596 universities 



200 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

and colleges in which there are thirty thousand professors and in- 
structors and which have libraries containing 16 million volumes of 
books. Our imports in 1870 were 436 millions and our exports 393 
millions, showing a balance against us of 43 millions; while in 1913, 
our imports were 1,813 millions and our exports 2,465 millions, so 
that we had a balance of trade in our favour of 652 millions, and for 
the last seven years the average annual balance of trade has been 
more than five hundred million dollars. We have gained by immi- 
gration about 30 million people of which the year 1913 brought 
1,200,000 — practically equal to the population of the city of Constan- 
tinople. This great army, besides bringing their energy, strength, 
and capacity to work, also brought with them 30 million dollars in 
cash! I wonder if these figures give you the faintest idea of this 
tremendous growth. 

How was this all done? 

We invited, urged, and welcomed help from every source and there 
was a generous response. We utilized English, French, German, and 
Dutch money to help build our railroads. We opened our portals 
wide to immigrants who overflowed our shores in a most unprecedented 
fashion. It first relieved Ireland and Germany of their surplus 
population and thereby bettered the condition of those that remained 
at home; later on Italy and Russia sent us hundreds of thousands of 
their people. And it was thus that the native population received 
the necessary reinforcements to help develop the new districts that 
were being opened for settlement. As fast as the railroad develop- 
ment pierced the West, villages and cities followed it. The North- 
erners and Southerners found a common ground in the great and 
almost boundless West which was then entirely undeveloped and they 
worked side by side in this new land of promise and soon forgot their 
past differences. They started out in log cabins which they erected 
with their own hands; they slept on pine boughs and were willing to 
forego all comforts to enable them rapidly to recoup their lost for- 
tunes. Gradually they acquired the almost luxurious surroundings 
in which they live to-day, for there is hardly a farmhouse without an 
organ or a piano, a sewing machine, a small library and carpets on 
the floor, and most of them own considerable agricultural machinery 
and a great many of them their own automobiles. 

We adopted a system of protection so as to foster our then infant 
industries which are now managed by wonderful corporations that 
not only can stand alone but compete with the world. We encouraged 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 201 

thrift and habits of saving so that the deposits in the savings banks 
to-day amount to 4,450 millions and the assets of the life insurance 
companies to more than 4,400 million dollars. 

What do such accumulated assets mean? 

They mean opportunities realized, steady thrift, thousands of 
thrills of pleasure at individual progress toward independence and 
protection against want in old age, provisions for rainy days; the 
renewed prosperity of the natives of the South, North, East, and 
West; conversion of millions of stalwart immigrants into prosperous 
farmers, business men, mechanics, etc., who are the owners of these 
and other assets. I am going to leave to your imagination and poetic 
temperament to analyze still further what are the component parts 
when reduced into human endeavours that constitute this monument 
of prosperity. 

We are not so conceited as to arrogate to ourselves the claim that 
we are the only country that has accomplished such wonderful results 
in the last fifty years. In 1865 there was no German Empire nor 
United Italy; their creation and phenomenal development have taken 
place since then. I believe that a description of the industrial and 
commercial development of those and many other countries would 
make as fine a story as I have told you about the United States; but 
they are so near to you that it would lack the enchantment that dis- 
tance lends to a view. I have shown you results and I now want to 
tell you that they have not been attained without a great many 
troubles and tribulations. We have had our severe panics and re- 
cessions; our droughts and floods; our pests of grasshoppers and boll- 
weevils; our strikes and labour troubles, some of which have led to 
bloodshed. It was no easy task to assimilate the many different 
nationalities that reached our shores. The troubles of most nations 
are those of struggling against poverty. We have had the unusual ex- 
perience of having to fight and suppress the excessive prosperity of 
the privileged classes of our country, because they were about destroy- 
ing our free government and were depriving our people of their equal 
opportunities. Fortunately we found in our present President, Wood- 
row Wilson, a champion for justice and rights and he has, through his 
infinite skill and wisdom, practically after one year of administration, 
adjusted the matter. 

If I were in America and wanted to compare our accomplishments 
to something definite, I would speak of a fifty-story building in con- 
trast to some of the two- or three-story buildings. But being in 



202 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Turkey I want to say that I have shown you the wonderful national 
rug that we have produced in the United States. It was woven by 
the millions that inhabit our land, natives and foreigners, whites and 
blacks, people from the North, South, East, and West, men and 
women, and from materials produced in our own soil and imported 
from all countries; and as far as we have finished it, we pride our- 
selves, notwithstanding some faults and defects, that it makes a fine, 
harmonious whole. And the sincerest compliments that any country 
could pay to us would be to adopt and imitate our pattern. 

When I described the success we had attained in our 
endeavours during the fifty years since the Civil War, 
Talaat and some of his colleagues were visibly impressed. 
Shortly after this dinner both Talaat and Enver urged 
me to visit various parts of the Turkish Empire in order to 
be able to advise them as regards reforms in their adminis- 
tration and other means of public progress. While my 
instructions from my government, like those of every 
country to its foreign representatives abroad, forbade my 
intermeddling with purely domestic affairs, I felt that the 
situation in Turkey was wholly without precedent. So I 
set myself to study the country and its varied and most in- 
tricate problems. With Talaat and Enver I planned 
three trips — the first to Palestine and SjTia, the second to 
the south shore of the Black Sea, and the third to the in- 
terior, as far as the Bagdad railway was then constructed. 
The coming of war prevented the second and third trips. 
The first I shall describe in the next chapter. 

But, fascinating as were my discoveries in the novel 
field of diplomacy, and much as I enjoyed the effort to 
assist the Turkish leaders, I felt after all that my true 
function as American Ambassador was far removed from 
the intrigues of the Old World Powers and from the mo- 
mentary struggles of the existing Turkish Government. 
On the one hand, America had no ambitions in Turkey 
that called for diplomatic gambling. Our interests there 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 203 

were almost wholly altruistic. We had, to be sure, a small 
commercial interest, and I had no disposition to shirk my 
responsibility for fostering its improvement. The Stan- 
dard Oil Company was our most considerable business 
representative. The Singer Sewing Machine Company, 
served in Constantinople by Germans from its Berlin 
branch, was second. The third in importance were the 
American buyers of Turkish tobacco and Turkish licorice. 
Besides these, we had little commercial representation. 

America's true mission in Turkey, I felt, was to foster 
the permanent civilizing work of the Christian missions, 
which so gloriously exemplified the American spirit at its 
best. As I frequently explained to the Turkish Govern- 
ment officers, we had little need for foreign trade or for- 
eign sources of raw material. Our territory was so vast, 
and our population relatively so small, that we had neither 
reason nor disposition to covet further territory. I ex- 
plained to them further that our citizens were accustomed 
to achieve their own financial independence, and that this 
characteristic of rising from poverty to affluence had bred 
in them, as a national characteristic, a sympathy with those 
not yet arrived at fortune, and a helpful wish to place the 
means of advancement within the reach of those still 
struggling upward. This spirit had lavished itself in 
America upon the advancement of common schools and 
higher institutions of learning, and upon thousands of 
other forms of philanthropy and helpfulness. This spirit 
of good will, I explained further, overflowed our bound- 
aries into other lands, partly because we wished to share 
our good fortune with others, and chiefly because it was 
prescribed by the Christian faith, which declared that good 
works should not be limited to those of one's own family 
or kindred. America, I told them, is constantly receiv- 
ing hundreds of thousands of emigrants from the Old 
World, and American generosity has placed among these 



204 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

newly arrived citizens the services of expert advisers, who 
use every means to make easy the path of the immigrant, 
and to induct him as rapidly as possible into the full fel- 
lowship of American life. The Christian missions in Tur- 
key, I added, carried this work one step further: it went 
into other lands and tried to carry to them some of the 
benefits which our material prosperity made possible 
among us. 

I think my words were received, at first, with some re- 
serve, not only by the Turks themselves, but by my col- 
leagues, the representatives of the European nations. 
They soon learned, however, to believe them, when they 
saw that I sought no concessions, that I devoted no more 
attention to the American commercial enterprises repre- 
sented in the Levant than were necessary for the transac- 
tion of their ordinary business, and that I gave my chief 
attention to encouraging the work of the Christian mis- 
sionaries and spreading the gospel of Americanism. I 
soon found that I could be of the greatest assistance to 
these people. It was generally believed in Turkey that 
I was unusually close to the President. Consequently 
the attentions which I took pains to shower upon the mis- 
sionaries added enormously to the importance of their 
position in the eyes of the Turkish Government, and 
placed them upon an entirely new footing in their consid- 
eration. When it was observed that Dr. Gates, the presi- 
dent of Robert College, frequently accompanied me on 
my horseback rides, and that I made an invariable custom 
of entertaining at dinner at least once a week Dr. Mary 
Mills Patrick and Dr. Louise B. Wallace, the president 
and the dean, respectively, of the Constantinople College 
for Girls, the Turkish Government conceived ^n entirely 
new idea of the importance that America attaches to these 
institutions; and they gave a corresponding deference to 
the wishes of their presidents. 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 205 

Even if I had not conceived these attentions to be one of 
my prime duties, I should have been drawn to these com- 
panionships by a native congeniaHty of temper. Dr. Pat- 
rick and Dr. Gates were splendid examples of American 
womanhood and manhood. Both had forsaken the op- 
portunity of success in America to devote their lives un- 
selfishly to the great task of human betterment. Their 
gifts of mind and graces of character would have made 
them delightful companions in any circumstances. But 
having, besides, as they did, a profound interest in the 
kind of work that had so deeply engrossed me in New 
York, I gravitated toward them in Constantinople by 
a natural attraction. With them I would mention Dr. 
Peet, the resident financial representative, in Constanti- 
nople, of the Mission Boards of America — a man of great 
experience and gracious person who had given a quarter 
of a century of his life to work in this field. Further along 
in this article, I shall describe some of the happy experi- 
ences I had in meeting some of the young men and wo- 
men who were students at the colleges. 

My relationships with the Jews of Constantinople were 
equally useful and equally pleasant. I cultivated the ac- 
quaintance of the Chief Rabbi Nahoun, a learned and bril- 
liant man in his early forties. I took pains to show him 
every possible honour in public. I let it be generally 
known that I frequented the B'nai Brith Lodge at Con- 
stantinople, which, to my astonishment and gratification, 
I discovered to contain in its membership a group of men 
of higher average quality than are in any American lodge 
of the same order with which I am acquainted. My pub- 
lic attentions to these representative Jews gave to them 
also a new importance and a new dignity in the view of 
the Turkish Government. It was indeed gratifying to 
me to be able, with scarcely an effort, so greatly to im- 
prove the status of my co-religionists in the eyes of a 



206 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

government which controlled the historical birthplace of 
the Hebrew religion and the scene of its one-time tem- 
poral grandeur. 

One of my ambitions at Constantinople was to make the 
Embassy truly the American Headquarters. Every 
American of whatever degree, whether resident or visitor, 
was welcome within its portals, I endeavoured to have 
every one of them enjoy even its formal hospitality — an 
invitation to a luncheon or a dinner. I felt that the Em- 
bassy was not intended merely to provide an opportunity 
for exclusive social distinction for the Ambassador. On 
the contrary, it belonged to the American people; and 
certainly part of my function was to see that it was of ser- 
vice to them. I soon observed how greatly an invitation 
to the Embassy was appreciated; and since my return to 
this United States I have had innumerable evidences of 
the enjoyment which the simplest courtesy I extended 
brought to its recipient. Time after time I have had 
strangers salute me in various parts of this country and 
remind me with great warmth of the pleasure they had en- 
joyed in a call at the Embassy in Turkey. 

But perhaps the most satisfying of all my associations 
in Turkey was the privilege I enjoyed of constantly shar- 
ing in the problems and accomplishments of the two prin- 
cipal American colleges. To me their work was an end- 
less source of satisfaction. To see these great evidences 
of American idealism functioning in this remote and back- 
ward land, spreading civilization among people long sub- 
merged in ignorance, was a profound reason for pride in 
my country. As a humanitarian, it was a corresponding 
delight to see the students themselves — their young minds 
expanding, their young spirits fired with enthusiasm, in 
the congenial atmosphere of these institutions which, but 
for America, would not have existed and for which there 
was no substitute within their reach. 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 207 

The Girls' College especially appealed to my sym- 
pathy. Here, in a land in which the position of women 
was the most unfavourable, was an institution which was 
offering to the future mothers of the Near East an en- 
trance into a new world of freedom and opportunity. 
Girls were gathered here from all parts of the Turkish 
Empire — Turkish girls, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Bul- 
garians, and Albanians. It was a delight to see how they 
responded to their opportunity. On numerous occasions, 
Dr. Patrick invited me to address them, and one such oc- 
casion I recall with a special pleasure. I described to 
them the American profession of social worker, tracing 
the reasons which gave rise to the movement for social bet- 
terment in our country and explaining how this new pro- 
fession arose out of the need for trained workers in that 
field. I was astonished to see how deep an impression my 
description made upon them. It appealed to the univer- 
sal instinct of women to cherish life and to work for its im- 
provement. So enthusiastic were these young Oriental 
women that afterward Dr. Patrick told me more than half 
of tliem had expressed an ambition to devote their life to 
social service. 

These girls, touched by the stimulation of the new intel- 
lectual world freely opened to them, attempted many 
imaginative experiments. One of the most interesting 
that I observed was the product of a debate held in the 
college, in which one team had maintained the position of 
the Greek Stoics against the other group which had de- 
fended the philosophy of the Epicureans. Not satisfied 
with debating the subject abstractly, the girls had resolved 
to put the two philosophies to the practical test of experi- 
ence; and for a week the Senior Class was divided into two 
groups, one of which attempted actually to hve for that 
period according to the Stoic dogma and the other accord- 
ing to the Epicurean. They took the experiment seri- 



208 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ously, but of course, with the lightheartedness of youth, 
they found it an entertainment as well. The essays writ- 
ten on their experiences as Stoics and Epicureans would 
make interesting reading. I could not refrain from specu- 
lating with hope and enthusiasm upon the numerous in- 
fluences which this college, through these eager young 
spirits, would wield in directing the future destiny of the 
millions of backward people among whom they would be 
scattered as torch bearers of civilization. 

Robert College was an institution for men, founded 
fifty years ago by ChristopherR. Roberts, a wealthy leather 
merchant of New York. Its early destiny was directed 
by Dr. Hamlin and Dr. Washburn, two far-seeing states- 
men of education. They had steered a course for the in- 
stitution which had gained at least the passive cooperation 
of the Turkish Government, while in America it had 
gained the enthusiastic support of great philanthropists 
like Cleveland H. Dodge and John S. Kennedy. Grad- 
ually there had been added to its faculty men of strong 
character and profound learning, so that by the time I 
reached Constantinople it was an institution worthy of all 
the care that had been lavished upon it. These earnest 
men had made a real impression upon the life of the Near 
East. Being the only great seat of learning in that whole 
large territory, it had attracted the ambitious youth from 
the remotest Armenia and all the Balkan countries. Bul- 
garia especially had appreciated its opportunity. Hun- 
dreds of the leaders of Bulgarian political and economic 
life received their training here. 

In Dr. Gates, the president of Robert College, I found 
a man who was very useful to me. He had lived many 
years in Turkey, knew all the chief figures in its public 
life, and was a profound student of Turkish psychology. 
In return, I had the pleasure of being useful to him during 
the trying days after Turkey entered the war. 



SOCIAL CONSTANTINOPLE 209 

Such was the picture of Constantinople as I saw it dur- 
ing the first four months of my embassy. It was a picture 
full of strange anomaHes and apparent contradictions. 
Here was I, a native of Europe, representing the greatest 
repubhc of America at the court of an Oriental sovereign. 
Here was I, a Jew, representing the greatest Christian 
nation of the world at the capital of the chief INIoham- 
medan nation. Here was I, a man without any previous 
diplomatic experience whatsoever, suddenly projected 
headlong into one of the most difficult diplomatic posts in 
the world, as one of the ten personal representatives of the 
President. Here was a nation, ruled in name by a proud 
descendant of ^Mohammed, and ruled in fact by a group of 
desperate adventurers whose chieftain was an ex-railroad 
porter. Here was the capital of an ancient and decaying 
nation, which was soon, because of its strategic position, 
to become one of the very vital centres of world diplo- 
macy. Here was a wornout empire dying, which in its 
death agony clutched other peoples still with its withered 
fingers and was soon to reach up and draw within its fatal 
embrace, in the death grapple of a world war, boys from 
the cattle ranges of Australia, aboriginal Indians from the 
wilds of northwest Canada, peasants from farthest Rus- 
sia, cockneys from the East End of London, shepherds 
from the Carpathian Mountains — vast aggregations of 
soldiers as polyglot as the population of Constantinople 
itself — that mongrel city which, sitting at the cross roads 
of ancient trade routes, had for centuries drawn citizens 
from every people under heaven. How could I realize, 
during those peaceful first months of my embassy, that I, 
the representative of remote and isolated America, should 
soon be involved in diplomatic complications that should 
involve the very continuance of American institutions. 
It was well that I had those few months of peaceful educa- 
tion into that society before the storm of the World 



/ 



210 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

War burst upon us. It was well, too, that I had my trip 
to Egypt and Asia Minor, where I met and learned much 
from Lord Kitchener, Lord Bryce, and the wise Ameri- 
cans and Jews whom I there encountered. This journey 
was of so much importance to me that it deserves a sepa- 
rate chapter. 



CHAPTER XI 

MY TEIP TO THE HOLY LAND 



A 



LL through the winter of 1913-14, though busily 
engaged in mastering my other duties as Ambas- 
sador, there were constantly two problems inter- 



estmg me. 



The first was the American missionary activities, whose 
ramifications reached into all parts of Turkey, and whose 
many and varied requests, though intelligently interpre- 
ted by Dr. W. W. Peet, I could not fully grasp, owing to 
the meagreness of my knowledge of the men and women 
concerned, and of the physical conditions surrounding 
them in their activities in the interior of Turkey. I was 
at the seat of government of all these missionary activities, 
and had become well acquainted with the directing forces. 
Doctor Peet had showTi me his vast records, and had ac- 
quainted me with the many branches, and told me of the 
many representatives that they had scattered throughout 
Turkey. Occasionally, visits from some of the interior 
missionaries had impressed me so favourably both as to 
their sincerity and sympathy for their flocks, that I be- 
came thoroughly aroused with a desire to see the entire 
mechanism of the missionary activities in Turkey. I per- 
sonally wanted to know the administrative and educa- 
tional forces, and visit the buildings and surroundings in 
which they were operating, so that I might be able prop- 
erly to present their claims to the Turkish officials, and fin- 
ally give an intelligent account to those of my friends in 
America who had so anxiously impressed upon me the 

211 



212 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

deep interest felt by such a vast number of them in the wel- 
fare of the missionaries. 

My second problem was the Jewish question, which I 
will discuss in a separate chapter. Naturally I concluded 
to visit first the Holy Land and the Mediterranean Coast 
of Asia, where so many of the important Christian mis- 
sions were located. When I spoke to different people 
concerning this trip, everyone urged me to go. The Turk- 
ish authorities felt that it would greatly benefit them if I 
could, with my own eyes, see the possibihties of an indus- 
trial and agricultural revival of Turkey, for, thereafter, I 
might be useful to them in influencing foreign capital to 
invest in their prospects. The missionaries were enthusi- 
astic. They expected — and I afterward ascertained were 
justified in this — that a visit to their main stations by the 
American Ambassador would so impress the local authori- 
ties both at those places and at Constantinople that their 
standing with, and their treatment by, the Turkish offi- 
cials would be greatly improved. My Jewish friends, 
similarly, felt that such a tangible evidence of American 
and my personal interest in their condition would greatly 
benefit them with the authorities. The men in the Em- 
bassy who now realized how easily an "outsider" could 
master the knowledge that lay buried in the records of the 
Chancery also encouraged my scheme to delve further 
into the outside ramifications of American activity in Tur- 
key. 

The best and most direct transportation to Palestine 
was supplied by the splendid Russian steamship lines that 
were then plying weekly between Odessa and Alexandria, 
and as these boats stopped for a day at Smyrna, and an- 
other day at Piraeus, I should thereby be enabled to visit 
the Consul and the American College at Smyrna, and to 
view the interesting sights of Athens. I therefore chose 
this route. 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 213 

As the journey was made for the purpose of studying 
two distinct problems, I think it well to describe in this 
chapter all the things that are of general interest, reserv- 
ing for a later chapter the highly specialized Jewish ques- 
tion as I saw and studied it in Palestine. I shall not 
weary the reader with a complete record of the journey, 
but shall select for him some interesting incidents and ob- 
servations without following too closely their chronologi- 
cal order. 

Of these, one of the most interesting (and one that in- 
volved several amusing complications) was my visit to the 
Caves of Machpelah. When Doctor Peet heard of my 
plans to visit Palestine, he came to see me and spent a long 
time in informing me of what I could see, and of the tre- 
mendous benefit that it would be to me and to the mis- 
sionaries to become personally acquainted. This was a 
helpful service, and I gratefully made notes of his sug- 
gestions. When these were finished, I was somewhat 
puzzled when he launched into a long dissertation upon 
the unique advantage which I, as an ambassador, enjoyed 
in being able to secure permission to visit the Caves of 
JNIachpelah. He explained that these caves were the au- 
thentic graves of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Sarah, 
Leah, and Rebecca. He added the curious information 
that the JNIoslems regarded these patriarchs as among the 
holiest of the saints of Islam. And so jealous were they 
in their religious veneration of these tombs that, by an ex- 
traordinary paradox, they have for one thousand years 
prohibited not only the Christians, but the blood descend- 
ants of Abraham, the Jews, from visiting these tombs. 
The Moslems had erected a mosque over them, and they 
were guarded day and night. The only exception to the 
rule that none but INIohammedans might visit them was 
that the privilege was extended to visiting princes of royal 
blood, and to ambassadors, who represented, not nations, 



214 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

but the persons of their sovereigns. Doctor Peet then en- 
larged again upon the extraordinary opportunity which 
this privilege gave me of enjoying a unique experience. 

Light had now dawned upon me, and I asked Doctor 
Peet a question which I intentionally drew out into a long 
sentence, so as to study the effect upon him. I asked him 
whether my inference that this great interest which he dis- 
played in my trip and the importance which he attached 
to the opportunities incident to my travelling not as a pri- 
vate citizen, but as an ambassador, could be construed by 
me as a hint on his part of a lurking wish that he might ac- 
company me. 

Doctor Peet was usually so serious that I did not know 
how he would respond. He answered me quite earnestly: 
"Well, really, that was my object in telling you all about 
it." I told him I fully realized how valuable his company 
would be, especially in arranging my meetings with the 
missionaries, and I most cordially invited him to come with 
me. A few days later, Peet called again, and said to me: 
"You know, I have been thinking a great deal about our 
trip. I shall be able to render the assistance you expect 
of me in Palestine ; but when you visit Syria and Galilee, 
you ought to have with you Dr. Franklin Hoskins of 
Beirut, who is a great Arabic scholar and in charge of the 
missions there, and knows everybody in and everything 
about that region." I ended the interview with an invita- 
tion for him as well. "But," I said, "if I invite Hoskins, 
shall I not slight Dr. Howard Bliss, president of the Prot- 
estant Syi'ian College at Beirut, who was introduced to 
me at a luncheon given for that purpose in New York by 
my warm friend, Cleveland H. Dodge, and whom I had 
then promised to visit at Beirut ?" Then Peet said : "Why 
not invite Bliss, too? He would be a great acquisition to 
the party." "But," I added, "this won't do, unless I also 
invite his daughter and her husband, Bayard Dodge." 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 215 

So I invited these various parties, and received prompt ac- 
ceptances. But this by no means completes the story. 

A few days later Mr. Schmavonian, who had been con- 
nected with the Embassy for seventeen years as the Turk- 
ish adviser, and who was the custodian of the tradition of 
the Embassy, awaited me in my office one afternoon after, 
as I subsequently discovered, he had carefully instructed 
the doorkeeper not to announce any one for half an hour. 
He pointed out to me with great detail that American 
ambassadors had come and gone out of Constantinople, 
"while Schmavonian went on forever." He then said: 
"Now, the benefits of all this knowledge that can be se- 
cured on this trip will be lost when you leave Constanti- 
nople. Why not take me along, and perpetuate them?" 
I laughingly asked him how long he expected to stay in 
the service of the United States, and he answered that he 
expected to die in it. I hesitated about taking Mr. 
Schmavonian along, and I told him so, as I feared it would 
interfere with the activities of the Embassy. He quickly 
responded: "You know that nothing important will be 
done in your absence without your consent, so why not 
have me with you at j^our elbow, so that you can have the 
benefit of my advice in deciding the problems that may 
come up in performing your duties as ambassador, while 
you are travelhng?" I cabled the State Department, and 
got their consent to take him with me, and he proved of 
invaluable assistance. 

My party then numbered six, besides my family. But, 
one day in Cairo, where I stopped en route to Palestine, 
I was approached by Chancellor McCormick of the Uni- 
versity of Pittsburgh. After introducing himself and 
exchanging the compliments of the day, he said: "I hear 
you are going to visit the Caves of Machpelah. I would 
not have the audacity to ask you upon so informal an ac- 
quaintance [about twenty minutes] for permission to ac- 



216 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

company you, but if you want to do a real favour to the 
three thousand girls and boys who attend the Pittsburgh 
University, by enabling them to hear from me all about 
the Caves of Machpelah, I hope you will take me with 
you." His plea on behalf of those fine young Americans 
was irresistible, and he was promptly invited. 

That same afternoon, a very likely, rather clerical- 
looking young man came up to me, and said: "Chancellor 
McCormick has told me that he has secured permission to 
accompany your party to visit the Caves of Machpelah 
and I thought that perhaps if you knew who I was, you 
would take me along also." I asked: "Pray, who are 
you?" He replied: "My brother married Jessie Wil- 
son." So I said: "My dear Dr. Sayre, you are most 
cordially invited to join our party." 

Proceeding a few days later from Port Said to Jaffa, 
I discovered to my great delight that Viscount and Lady 
Bryce were fellow passengers on that boat. I invited 
them to join us at our table, and we had a very pleasant 
talk until late in the evening. I then left the tireless old 
Viscount on the deck with Schmavonian, and a little later 
was just about to retire for the night when Schmavonian 
knocked at the door of my stateroom. He told me that 
he had, perhaps unguardedly, told the Viscount of our 
intended trip to the Caves of Machpelah, and that Bryce 
had expressed an ardent desire to accompany us. I dis- 
cussed the matter with the Viscount on the following 
day, and he said: "You know that I, as a former British 
Ambassador to the United States, could also secure the 
privilege of visiting the Caves." I promptly told him 
that I would consider it a great honour if he and his wife 
would join our party. 

When we finally started our trip to the Caves of Mach- 
pelah, our party like a rolling snowball had grown to 
twenty-six persons. The Caves are near the village of 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 217 

Hebron, some twenty-odd miles north of Jerusalem. We 
drove thither in open carriages, and at the end of our jour- 
ney had an experience which confirmed my apprehensions 
regarding the susceptibilities of the Arab ^Mohammedans. 
As we drove into Hebron, a large crowd had gathered to 
greet us around an arch of welcome which the Jewish com- 
munities of Hebron had erected for the occasion. Just 
as our carriage drew near to the archway, a little Arab 
child broke loose from his parents, and ran directly in the 
path of our carriage. At a cry from my wife, the driver 
reined the horses back to their haunches, but the child was 
already directly beneath them. By good fortune that was 
little short of a miracle, their hoofs did not touch him, and 
he was quickly snatched to safety by his panic-stricken 
mother. But, I shall not soon forget the black looks of 
instinctive hatred upon the faces of the Arabs in that 
throng, who looked upon us as infidel intruders. The 
same looks and deep murnuirs of disapproval accompa- 
nied us as we entered the sacred portals of their mosque, 
which covers the Caves of Machpelah. Their prayer hour 
had been postponed on account of our visit. Once inside, 
the spell of antiquity, and the great traditions, erased all 
other impressions from our minds. Several of the tombs 
were above ground, and over them were erected stone cata- 
falques, their sides adorned with gorgeously embroidered 
rugs and broken by grilled doorways through which en- 
trance to the tomb itself was permitted. The other tombs 
were in caves below the floor of the mosque. They could 
be seen through holes left in the floor for that purpose. 
As we examined them from above we observed that two 
of them, the graves of Abraham and Jacob, were littered 
with pieces of paper. Inquiry of our Moslem guides dis- 
closed the reason. The Mohammedans have a belief that 
the spirits of these patriarchs have a special influence with 
the Deity, and that their intervention in behalf of the 



218 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

faithful can be invoked by written petitions addressed to 
them and dropped upon their tombs. Observing more 
closely, we noticed that there was a striking preference 
shown by the petitioners in the greater number of appeals 
that had been made in this manner to the spirit of the one 
rather than to the spirit of the other. Further inquiry 
developed a curious Moslem tradition to the effect that 
one patriarch was reputed to be of a benign and accommo- 
dating disposition, whereas the other was supposed to be 
irascible. In consequence, the prudent worshippers had 
mostly addressed their petitions to the spirit which they 
felt would be more receptive and not resent their intrusion. 

After inspecting the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, we started to make a similar survey of the tombs of 
Sarah, Leah, and Rebecca. Our Moslem guides promptly 
stopped the men of our party. They explained that the 
Mohammedan rule, that men might not look upon the 
faces of women, applied to the dead as well as to the 
living, and that therefore only the ladies of our party 
might look within the enclosures which protected the 
tombs of the female saints. 

Our inspection of the tombs occupied considerable 
time, and it was an interesting experience to feel the spell 
of their antiquity growing upon us. As the moments 
slipped by, we felt ourselves carried farther and farther 
back along the aisles of time and into the venerable reali- 
ties of an august past. From talkative sightseers we 
were transformed into thoughtful ponderers upon these 
impressive memorials of history, and finally into silent and 
reverent worshippers at this shrine of three great religions. 
As we were about to leave. Dr. Hoskins suggested that 
I ask all of our party to devote five minutes to silent 
prayer. I did so, and there we stood, Moslems, Chris- 
tians, and Jews — all of us conscious of the fact that we 
were in the presence of the tombs of our joint forefathers 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 219 

— that no matter in what details we differed, we traced 
our rehgion back to the same source, and the ten minutes 
to which this prayer extended were undoubtedly the most 
sacred that I have ever spent in my life. 

Never have I experienced so solemn and exalted an 
emotion as that which filled my spirit, standing there in 
worship at those tombs four thousand years old, around 
which converged, and met, a sublime rehgious history, 
which had altered the life of one half the human race 
through forty centuries. 

I have carried my narrative away from its chronological 
sequence in order to tell of our visit to the Caves of 
Machpelah as one related incident. Returning now to 
the earlier part of our journey, our brief stops at Smyrna 
and Athens were followed by a direct route to Alexandria, 
where we arrived on INIarch 26th. Our Russian vessel 
ran up the American flag at the masthead in honour of our 
presence aboard, and at the dock we were further hon- 
oured by a reception committee consisting of Olney 
Arnold, the American consular agent at Cairo, Consul 
Garrels, Captain ^lacauley of the Scorpion, and Mah- 
moud Tahgri Bey, the acting Governor of Alexandria. 
The last-named was a fine young man of about twenty- 
eight years of age. He told me that for some time Alex- 
andria had been without a governor, but that the Khedive 
in honour of my coming had appointed him to that office, 
especially to give me a proper reception, and that he had 
only assumed his office at eight o'clock that very morning. 
He presented ^Mrs. jNIorgenthau with a bouquet of flowers 
and my daughter Ruth with a box of marrons glaces, with 
the compliments of the Khedive. It was amusing to see 
what important stress he laid upon this — his first — official 
act. The Khedive had sent his own official private car for 
our journey. At the railroad station in Alexandria the 
Khedivial Entrance had been opened for us, and a cordon 



220 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

of soldiers were lined upon either side to secure us an unin- 
terrupted passageway; the Khedive had neglected nothing, 
not even forgetting to provide a delicious luncheon, which 
was served us in his car, as we proceeded to Cairo. 

We arrived in time to drive out and view the Pyramids 
before going to Arnold's house for dinner. There Arnold 
acquainted me with a curious complication which arose out 
of my wish to meet Lord Kitchener. He explained to 
me the anomalous position which Kitchener occupied in 
Egypt. Though Great Britain absolutely controlled that 
country's destinies, and though Kitchener, as the repre- 
sentative of Britain, was practically dictator, Egypt was 
nominally a part of the Turkish Empire, and the Khedive 
was the head of its government. Kitchener's official title 
was British Agent and Consul-General, and as such, on 
ceremonial occasions, he ranked far below not merely the 
Khedive, but myself, as an Ambassador. When Arnold 
had told Kitchener of my coming, and that I wished to 
meet him, he expressed a cordial interest in the interview, 
but was somewhat puzzled how to meet the question of 
precedence. If he recognized me at Cairo as Ambassador 
from the United States, it might embarrass him in main- 
taining the attitude that Great Britain was taking in 
regard to Turkish rights in Egypt. If Kitchener invited 
me to meet him, the question of rank would come up. This 
question had arisen before, because even the other consuls- 
general who had arrived at Cairo earlier than Kitchener 
outranked him in diplomatic precedence. This problem, 
however, had been solved by an ingenious device. When- 
ever Kitchener was invited to a function where it was 
likely to arise, he was requested to act as host and thereby 
secured the place of honour. 

I resolved Arnold's perplexity and Kitchener's by say- 
ing that I had no intention of standing on my rights, and 
would be glad to pay Kitchener an informal call, as I 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 221 

certainly did not wish to leave Cairo without seeing him. 
When Kitchener received this message, he promptly in- 
vited me to call at ten o'clock the following morning. He 
was evidently informed of my intention to call on the 
Khedive at eleven o'clock and wished me to call on him 
(Kitchener) first. This call was very brief. After the 
exchange of the customary formalities, Kitchener 
launched into numerous questions about Turkey. He 
wished to know more about the men who made up the 
Committee of Union and Progress. He was especially in- 
terested in the Grand Vizier, Prince Said Halim, to whom 
the Young Turk Government had promised the place of 
the Khedive of Egypt — a position which he was qualified 
to fill on its social side by virtue of his aristocratic Hneage 
and superior education. Kitchener asked me to explain, 
if I could, how a man of Said Halim*s antecedents had 
come to be associated with "such uncouth cut-throats" as 
Talaat and Enver. 

We had scarcely gotten into an intimate conversation 
when I realized that I must hurry back to my hotel where 
the Khedive's carriage was to call for me shortly before 
eleven o'clock. Kitchener said that he wished to continue 
the conversation, and asked me if I would not bring Mrs. 
Morgenthau and my daughter to lunch with him two days 
later. I accepted the invitation. 

At eleven o'clock the Khedive's carriage arrived to take 
me to the Palace for my official call. Policemen were 
posted at every cross street along the entire route, so as to 
give us an uninterrupted right of way and to give us 
proper recognition. I was delighted with my conference 
with the Khedive. He proved to be a thoroughly up-to- 
date, modern enterprising business man without any frills 
or assumption of airs. He met me at the door of the 
reception room, led me to a sofa, sat down next to me, and 
while sipping the inevitable Turkish coffee, talked to me 



222 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

for about half an hour about some of his investments in 
Turkey, and told me of his intention to occupy his sum- 
mer residence on the Bosphorus at Yenikeny where I also 
had taken summer quarters. He then said that he 
regretted exceedingly that, before he had learned of 
my impending visit, he had made an appointment which 
would require him to leave town that afternoon, and he 
asked, in consequence, if he might not return my visit 
that same day. I told him that he reminded me of a 
Japanese student who, after paying a two-hour afternoon 
call on a lady in Boston, and receiving from her when he 
left a polite invitation to call again, walked around the 
block three times, and paid her a second visit. The 
Khedive laughed heartily, and though I assured him that 
I would gladly waive the formality which required him to 
return my visit, he insisted that he wished to continue the 
conversation, and would call later in the day. 

Consequently, that same afternoon, the Khedive re- 
turned my call at the Consular Agency, continuing the 
conversation as though there had been no interruption. 
He told me of the enormous cotton exports of Egypt 
valued at two hundred million dollars a year, and how his 
forefathers had developed the cotton industry in Egypt. 
As Kitchener had done, he asked numerous questions 
about the conditions in Turkey, and was very solicitous 
about the activities of the Government, and their relation 
to the diplomatic situation in Constantinople. It was a 
very curious experience to sit with one of the Oriental 
potentates on an absolutely equal footing, and to hear him 
talk about commercial and political affairs in perfectly 
good English, and in a business vernacular. 

The day after I exchanged calls with the Khedive I 
had a very interesting visit from his brother, Ali Mehem- 
mid, who called on me, and we talked for two hours. He 
proved to be a thoroughly chauvinistic Oriental, even as- 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 223 

suring me that he had remained single because he wanted 
absolute freedom in his political moves. He had travelled 
a great deal, and his pride and patriotism were deeply 
wounded by the fact that Egypt had to submit to British 
protection. Under the pressure of my questions, he ad- 
mitted that the Egyptians had greatly benefited by British 
rule, but he claimed that these benefits were more than 
counterbalanced by the evils which the European customs 
and schools had introduced into his country. He felt that 
the schools depraved the Egyptian children, and that the 
Egyptian women had been much happier before they read 
European novels and became slaves of the modes. He 
admitted that the Orientals were imitators, and would 
eventually have to find some way of "Orientalizing the 
Occidental Progress," which I thought was a neat way 
of putting it. He dishked the L^nion and Progress Party 
in Turkey because its members lacked breeding, and expe- 
rience in administration. He believed that the Arabs and 
Turks living in Turkey would not permit the Constitu- 
tional Turks to trade them away in order to save their five 
vilayets in and near Europe. I returned Prince Mehem- 
mid's visit the next day, and was greatly surprised to see 
that he was building an Egyptian palace. He had none 
but Egyptian workmen, and was having magnificent 
wood carvings done right on the premises. He showed 
me his stables, and told me he had purchased the best 
specimens of pure Arab breed, and was determined, for 
the sake of Egypt, to perpetuate the finest breed of Ara- 
bian horses. 

During our several days in Cairo we had a number of 
interesting experiences, including various meetings with 
the Jews, which I shall describe in another chapter. After 
a visit to the oldest Coptic church, which was built four- 
teen hundred years ago on the site of a temple that stood 
on a spot where the Arabs first entered Cairo, we went to 



224 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the famous Cairo University. Our guide was Arif Pasha, 
the representative of the Khedive, who had been a school- 
mate of Mr. Schmavonian. He introduced us to the 
Sheikh-ul-Islam, who took us to see the pupils. This was 
a never-to-be-forgotten sight. Ten thousand pupils were 
seated on the floors of the institution, there being no chairs 
or benches. Squatting on the ground, which was covered 
with stones, all of them were intently listening to readings 
or explanations by priests and teachers, all of them obvi- 
ously very poor, and all equally sincere and earnest. The 
scholars were from many lands and races — from India, all 
parts of Turkey and the provinces, Abyssinia, even ne- 
groes from Somaliland. I have never seen so many people 
apparently so insatiable for knowledge, and so tremen- 
dously absorbed in acquiring it amid such squalid condi- 
tions. They seemed perfectly content, and, yet, I was 
told, they live on next to nothing. Each receives at the 
beginning of the week a certain number of flexible pieces 
of bread, and they have to divide them up themselves so 
that they will last for the succeeding seven days. They 
sleep on miserable cots, four and five in one room. 

At last came our luncheon with Lord Kitchener. Even 
at this private luncheon I could foresee that the question 
of precedence was bound to present itself, and I was in- 
terested to learn how he was going to circumvent it. 
When we arrived, I was very much amused at the in- 
genuity he had displayed in evading it. In his dining 
room he had had two separate tables set, at one of which he 
presided with Mrs. Morgenthau at his right, and at the 
other of which his sister presided, and I sat at her right. 
After luncheon, he took us through some of the rooms, and 
showed us his wonderful collection of Russian ikons, de- 
scribing how he had gathered them, and drawing our 
attention to those that were especially attractive. Then 
he took me into a small room, closed the door, and we had 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 225 

an intimate lengthy conversation. He had profound 
reasons for being intensely interested in the personalities 
and ambitions of the new Young Turk Government in 
Constantinople, and he evidently intended to take full 
advantage of my freshly acquired knowledge, for he prac- 
tically put me on the witness stand on this subject, and 
indulged in a very thorough cross examination. 

With Egypt nominally a protectorate of Turkey, and 
in view of Great Britain's interest in Egypt, it was enor- 
mously important for Kitchener to get at the actual facts 
of what was going on at the capital of Turkey. He could 
not understand how Said Halim, who was the cousin of 
the Khedive and was wedded to an Egyptian princess, was 
permitting these Young Turks to use him as a figure-head, 
and allowing them to encroacli upon his prerogatives as 
Grand Vizier. Kitchener told me that he knew all about 
the Sultan, and realized how impotent he was to exert any 
influence, or to assume any real authority; that he had 
expected that Said Halim would be the real power in 
Turkey, but that his present information was that Talaat 
and his Committee of Union and Progress were develop- 
ing into the real authority. He was especially anxious to 
know all about Enver. He was surprised that a man like 
Enver who had never won a battle and was only a revolu- 
tionist, and not a soldier, should be raised from the rank 
of major to be Minister of War, because, in Turkey, the 
Minister of War was really the head of the army. Kitch- 
ener also asked me what the true condition of the Turkish 
army was, and whether his information was correct that 
Turkey was rapidly disintegrating. He thought that 
these inexperienced men would never be able to master 
the situation, and re-assert their authority over lost 
territories. He was anxious to know the attitude of the 
foreign ambassadors toward the Young Turks — how they 
treated them — and whether they mixed with them socially; 



226 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

and he was astonished when I told him that the German 
Ambassador was the only one who had any real contact 
with, and influence over, the Young Turks. 

I answered all his questions as fully as I could with 
propriety, and then, in turn, began to ply him with ques- 
tions of my own. I asked him whether he was satisfied 
with England's progress in Egypt. In reply, he went 
into a very elaborate and interesting explanation of Great 
Britain's colonial policy, and explained his conception of 
empire building. He pointed out the definite continuity 
that had existed in Great Britain's growth, and how 
essential it was for her to make secure the avenues of ap- 
proach for her commerce from England to India. He 
expressed the opinion that the English — both by reason 
of their flexible character, their equitable system of admin- 
istering justice, their willingness to preserve established 
customs and respect for religious institutions, and their 
long experience in such enterprises — were the best 
equipped of all peoples for colonial administration. He 
told me about some of his experiences in developing the 
Soudan; and in his description of this work, and of the 
work of the British Empire builders in other parts of the 
world, he talked of the Colonies in the same manner, and 
from much the same viewpoint, as I had been accustomed 
to hear among business men in New York who were devel- 
oping some big business combination or trust. 

I left Lord Kitchener with an impression of a man of 
sound business and political sense, powerful force of will, 
and an intense patriotism. 

When we bade farewell to Cairo, we passed again 
through the Khedivial Entrance, and again entered the 
Khedive's private car, which sped us part of the way along 
the Suez Canal to Port Said. We spent an hour inspecting 
the Canal at its mouth and the DeLesseps monument, and 
then boarded the steamer which was to carry us to Jaffa 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 227 

on the coast of Palestine. It was on this steamer that 
we had the good fortune to meet Viscount Bryce and his 
wife. This meeting was the beginning of a friendship 
which I valued most highly. On this trip I first had 
occasion to observe his method of obtaining information, 
which doubtless accounts for a part of his remarkable 
equipment as an historian. He was quite the greatest 
living questioner that I have ever met. He had developed 
cross examination to a fine art of picking men's brains. 
Most other men gather their information from books. It 
was a joy to be permitted to attend his seances with people 
who possessed information. He first put them completely 
at ease by ascertaining what subjects they were thoroughly 
posted on, and then, with a beneficent suavity, he made 
them willing contributors to his own unlimited store of 
knowledge. His thirst for facts was unquenchable. Ques- 
tion followed question almost like the report of shots fired 
from a machine gun. By this process, I have seen him 
rifle every recess of the minds of men like Schmavonian, 
who was a storehouse of Turkish history, custom, and tra- 
dition, and of Dr. Franklin E. Hoskins, who is a profound 
scholar in Bible history. His method was physically ex- 
hausting to his victims, and in the hands of a less delightful 
personality would have been intolerable. But Lord 
Bryce was as charming as he was inquisitive, and more 
than that, he gave out of his vast erudition as freely as he 
received. 

The morning after my first cross examination at his 
hands we arrived at Jaffa and proceeded on our tour 
through Palestine. 

After the customary visits to the shrines of the Chris- 
tians and the Jews and the Moslems (whose interest and 
significance were doubled by the eloquence and learning 
of Dr. Hoskins and Mr. Schmavonian), we proceeded 
northward toward Nabulus and Damascus. On our 



228 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

way thither we made a side trip westward to witness the 
Samaritan Easter sacrifice on Mount Gerizim. These 
Samaritans are one of the most interesting surviving rem- 
nants of antiquity in the world. They have scrupulously 
refrained from marrying outside their tribe, and have re- 
tained unchanged the customs which their Hneal ancestors 
observed in the remotest Bibhcal times, antedating the 
Christian Era by many centuries. The total population 
in March, 1919, was only one hundred and forty-one. 
During Easter week they dwell in about twenty camps, 
hving the life of their ancestors, and worshipping God in 
accordance with customs nearly four thousand years old. 
Each year at Easter- tide they ascend Mount Gerizim 
which they claim is the original Mount Moriah, to per- 
form the ancient sacrifices after the manner, and as they 
claim, on the spot where Abraham performed them at the 
time when he offered to sacrifice Isaac. When we reached 
their encampment on Blount Gerizim, we called on the 
High Priest, Jacob-ben-Aaron who, after we had paid our 
respects, asked us if we wished to go over the grounds, and 
have the various things explained to us. He was too old 
to accompany us, and consequently requested two 
senior priests to act in his stead. They showed us 
the ruins of the Temple which Abraham had erected, the 
spot where he had suddenly discovered the ram who saved 
Isaac from the sacrifice, and the altar where the ancient 
sacrifices took place. 

Just before sundown, the Samaritans gathered and be- 
gan the services which were to last all through the night. 
They began with prayer and song, which were kept up 
for more than an hour until the sun had set. They then 
killed seven beautiful ^hite lambs, and put them into a 
great hole in the^gpolind, in which fires had been burning 
for a week...--niis was in accordance with the law which 
prescribes that no flames shall touch the meat of sacrifice. 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 229 

So the fires were removed before the carcasses were 
placed in the pits and covered with earth, after which the 
intense heat of the ground accompHshed the necessary 
roasting. The Samaritans then resmiied their prayers 
and singing, which by alternating, they kept up unbroken 
until a quarter to twelve, midnight. In the meantime, we 
occupied our two tents which had been erected by the 
American colony at Jerusalem for our use — one of the 
tents for repose, and the other a dining room where we 
took our evening meal. Some of the ladies wrapped them- 
selves in rugs and went to sleep on steamer chairs, and 
the girls sat about chatting, while Doctors BHss and Hos- 
kins and I visited the different tents of the Samaritans, 
and had long talks with the High Priest and other priests. 
The High Priest explained to us that the material con- 
dition of the tribes was very bad. The Arabs disliked 
them and barely tolerated them. He, himself, was sup- 
posed to live on a tithe of the income of the tribe, but he 
said that this amount would not suffice to keep him for 
more than one month of the twelve, so that although he 
was more than seventy-four years of age, he used most of 
his time in copying the Pentateuch in Samaritan, and 
selling it whenever he could. Upon this hint, I bought a 
copy. 

One of the tents was reserved for the unclean women. 
They are not permitted to partake of the holy meat, but 
in return they are allowed certain liberties. They had an 
Arab servant who was dancing for them while they were 
beating time with their hands. 

In another tent we visited there was a sick man who 
was being looked after by a doctor. It was a very queer 
sight. The moon was shining brightly and you could see 
the men and women sitting around and visiting one an- 
other, all anxiously awaiting the division of the lambs. 
The High Priest excused himself for not having provided 



230 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

one lamb for us, but he had not anticipated that we would 
remain there until midnight. Of course, he said, as we 
were not Samaritans, he could not offer us any of the 
sacrificial meat. 

About midnight, the lambs were brought out and there 
were seven groups, and to each group was given a lamb, 
and they divided it with their hands and ate it with their 
fingers — no knife, fork, or any other implement being 
used. A great many of the men took large chunks of the 
meat to their tents, where the women and children were 
waiting. They ate it ravenously, as the law prescribes. 

It was indeed a strange and interesting experience. 
Here, on a fine moonlight night, on a lonely mountain in 
distant Palestine, was a little tribe of people carrying 
out without affectation the customs which their ancestors 
had observed unbroken for thousands of years, still dressed 
in the same garb, speaking the same language, and con- 
ducting themselves in the same manner as the shepherd 
folk of the time of Abraham. 

A member of our party, INIr. Richard Whiting, took a 
number of remarkable flash-light photographs of the 
ceremonies, a complete series of reproductions of which 
was published in the National Geographic Magazine some 
years ago. Shortly after midnight our party started 
homeward. Most of them were afraid to trust themselves 
in the dark on the horses and donkeys, and so they walked. 
Lord Bryce and I stuck to our horses, and it was a curious 
sight to see our Httle caravan wending its way toward the 
hotel in the darkness of the middle of the night — I with 
my Samaritan manuscript, and my daughter with one of 
the knives used for the sacrifice, which had been presented 
to her by one of the Samaritans. 

The headquarters from which we had made our excur- 
sion to Mount Gerizim was the city of Nabulus. From 
this same headquarters we made another excursion to 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 231 

Sebastiyeh, the old Samaritan capital of the ten tribes of 
Judea. Here was the spot where the Assji'ians besieged 
the Jews for three years, and then, in turn, were driven 
out by Alexander the Great. The ruins had Jewish foun- 
dations and superstructures erected by the Romans under 
Herod. 

These two plunges into remote antiquity suggested to 
my imagination the reply which I made to the Governor 
of Nabulus when he called one day in great excitement to 
say that he had just been notified that Talaat had tele- 
graphed from Constantinople to ask whether we were 
satisfied with our progress and receptions. The Governor 
was very anxious to know what he could do for me, and 
asked whether I preferred a dinner or some other form 
of entertainment. I replied that I had had so many 
Turkish dinners, and so many formal receptions, and 
asked if he would not arrange an Arabian night. The 
allusion evidently meant nothing to him, for I had to 
explain that I wanted to witness exactly how the Arabs 
spent their evenings, and suggested to him that this 
could be done if he would collect a group of important 
men of the town at some place where they were accustomed 
to gather, and permit me and a few of my friends to sit 
in with them as silent observers. The Governor caught 
the spirit of my request, and arranged for the entertain- 
ment. At eight-thirty the following evening he and a 
number of his officials called for us (Lord Bryce, Doctors 
Bliss and Hoskins, Messrs. Peet, Schmavonian, and my- 
self) , and 'led us through the winding darkness of the 
streets of a real Arabian town. 

The Chief of Police and three of his assistants headed 
our procession. Each was carrying a table lamp instead 
of the ordinary lantern. Then I followed, with the 
Governor of Nabulus on one side and Viscount Bryce 
on the other, and behind us, the rest of our party, Mah- 



232 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

moud Tewfik Hamid, the recently elected Deputy of the 
District, and other prominent Arabs. 

As we walked through the dark, narrow little streets 
bending in every direction, we saw here and there a shoe- 
maker at his work, and a few fruit shops still tempting 
the few passers-by with their wares. The air we breathed 
was laden with a pleasing Oriental aroma. At last, we 
unexpectedly found ourselves in a large square courtyard, 
in the centre of which was a fountain playing. From this 
courtyard we were ushered into an illuminated room about 
thirty feet square and twenty feet high. Marble divans 
ran around the sides of this room, covered with beautiful 
rugs. In the centre were numerous lamps of various 
kinds, and the walls were hung with rugs. On the 
divans sat, cross-legged, twenty-four of the most prom- 
inent Arabs of the city, smoking, drinking coffee, sipping 
lemonade, and carrying on an animated conversation. 
Through the guide, a nephew of the Governor, I re- 
quested them to continue their discussions, and to dis- 
regard our presence. The guide, in the meantime, 
informed us as to the pedigree and identity of the Arabs 
present. 

Doctor Bliss interpreted for me. The Arabs were dis- 
cussing the expected completion of a railroad line to 
Nabulus, and the effect it would have upon the exports 
of soap, which was the principal product of the city. 
They were pleased to know that they could make up larger 
packages than could be carried by the camels, which were 
the only means of transport at the moment, and they were 
figuring out the economy of this innovation. After con- 
cluding their discussion, they turned to us and acted as 
our hosts. They spoke with great pride of their lineage. 
They looked, indeed, with their intelligent faces and dig- 
nified bearing, like men bred of good stock. One of them 
told me that he had positive evidence at home that his 



MY TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND 233 

family had lived in Nabiilus for more than five hundred 
years, and another one traced his lineage back to the 
prophet ^Mohammed. 

The scene reminded me of the "Thousand and One 
Arabian Nights." Two sons and two nephews of Ismail 
Agha Nimr, the owner of the house, were continually 
flitting about, serving cigarettes, syrup, tea, and coffee. 
Nothing could have been more gracious or hospitable than 
their manner toward us. 

Our homeward walk was made under the full moon, 
and was as picturesque as had been the one earlier in the 
evening. Unconsciously, I could not keep from expect- 
ing genii to jump out at me from one of the little doors 
of the native houses. 

From Tiberias, our route led us to Damascus, where we 
spent several days exploring this most ancient of cities, 
and the beautiful surrounding country, and visiting the 
very attractive ruins at Balbek. Thence, we went to 
Beirut where the Syrian Protestant College is located — 
one of the finest American institutions in the Near East. 
Here we visited a very interesting Jewish settlement also. 
We then iourneved to Mersine, Adena, Tarsus, and 
Rhodes, returning to Constantinople on May 1st. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 

IN JANUARY, 1916, I applied to the State Depart- 
ment for a leave of absence, so that I might pay a 
visit to the United States, which I had not seen for 
more than two years. I had begun to feel the effects of 
the nervous strain of my labours to avert the terrible fate 
of the Armenians and Jews. These labours, and my 
experiences with German diplomatic intrigue in Constan- 
tinople during the war, have already been described in my 
earlier book, published in 1918 under the title, "Ambas- 
sador Morgenthau's Story," to which I must refer any of 
my readers who are interested to pursue my Turkish ex- 
periences further. 

I spent the first few days after my return to the United 
States with my old political friends in Washington, and 
I was shocked at the prevailing political atmosphere. Not 
one of the numerous men high in the Administration with 
whom I talked had the slightest hope that President 
Wilson could be reelected that fall. They were all con- 
vinced that, as the breach in the Republican Party had 
been healed, our political opponents were prepared to 
present a united front and were determined to win; and 
that, on the other hand, the Administration had made so 
many enemies in the preceding three years that the Pres- 
ident's defeat in November was a foregone conclusion. 
Tammany had received no consideration at his hands, and 
was very bitter; and hence there was little hkelihood of 
our carrying New York. "Organization leaders," other- 
wise the bosses, generally, had been ignored, and the 

234 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 235 

party machinery was rusty from disuse, where it was not 
actually broken down by dissension. Wilham G. ^IcAdoo 
told me frankly of his intention shortly to resign from the 
Cabinet and return to private business. Josephus Dan- 
iels spoke hopelessly of the political outlook. Frank L. 
Polk and Franklin D. Roosevelt gave me the same picture 
of party dissension, apathy, and despair. Even Senator 
James A. O 'Gorman of New York, whom I had known 
for many years as a man of native optimism and Irish 
courage, said to me: "Henry, it is sheer insanity to talk of 
reelecting President Wilson. He hasn't a ghost of a 
chance. I am convinced that the Democratic Party will 
be buried under a Repubhcan landslide this fall." But 
after listening to my enthusiastic arguments to prove that 
the President simply must be reelected and that we could 
convince the country of this necessity, he shared my con- 
viction. He said: "Henry, if I had had your viewpoint 
on this matter earlier, I would have modified my attitude. 
But I have gone too far now: with my record behind me, 
I cannot make a fight for reelection as Senator." 

My conversation with these men shocked me, but did 
not depress me. It aroused my fighting spirit. To my 
mind, the reelection of President Wilson offered not 
merel}^ an opportunity for partisan advantage, but I felt 
profoundly that the condition of international affairs 
made it a vital necessity to our safety as a nation, and to 
the cause of humanity the world over, because the rest of 
the world was looking to Mr. Wilson to be ultimately the 
man who should bring about peace. I pointed out to my 
friends the force of these arguments, and the folly, from 
our national point of view, of changing Administrations 
at such a critical juncture in our history. If a Repub- 
lican were elected in November, IVIr. Wilson's hands would 
practically be tied for the remaining four months of his 
Administration, while the President-Elect would be 



236 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

equally impotent to take effective measures to safeguard 
our interests in international affairs. 

I stressed the need to arouse the party from its lethargy, 
and to begin at once a powerful and nation-wide campaign 
to reelect the President. The Cabinet officers at Washing- 
ton responded to the enthusiasm which I poured into this 
enterprise, and I soon had some members of the National 
Committee awake and actively cooperating. At a con- 
ference with ]Mr. Burleson, I discovered that the Congres- 
sional Campaign Committee had done nothing. He sent 
for Mr. Doremus of Michigan, whose duty it was to launch 
this Congressional campaign. He painted a gloomy 
picture of the outlook for the Congressional elections. 
"We have no money to help the boys make their fights 
for reelection, and we have no one to whom we can go and 
get it. Many of them are thoroughly discouraged, and 
see no use in trying to do anything for the party, so they 
are just waiting for the end and planning to go back 
into private life." I asked Mr. Doremus: "What is the 
minimum amount necessary to start vigorous work for 
their reelection? I don't want to know how much you 
want, but how little you can possibly get along with." 
He named a modest figure, but declared that even this 
was impossible to raise. I promptly under-wrote it per- 
sonally, and he went to work eagerly; and he afterward 
reported to me that this action greatly changed the atti- 
tude of the Congressmen when they realized that help 
was at hand to make a real fight for the election. It 
practically created several hundred active campaign man- 
agers at a stroke. 

I then returned to New York, and on my own respon- 
sibility, leased national headquarters at No. 30 East 
Forty-second Street, signing the lease in my own name, 
after I had shown the rooms to Colonel House and Charles 
R. Crane, who approved my selection. I bought and 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 237 

rented furniture, typewriters, and other supplies, and got 
everything in shape so that the moment the approaching 
Convention was over, and the new Campaign Committee 
named, they would find the tools for their work ready to 
hand, and could go on the job without the delay w^e had 
experienced in 1912. 

In view of the hopelessness wliich I had found among 
the party leaders, and in view of the very narrow margin 
by which Mr. Hughes was defeated the following No- 
vember, I take pride in the consciousness that my activities 
were one of the necessary factors that led to INIr. Wilson's 
reelection in 1916. 

I shall return later in this article to other dramatic 
incidents of that campaign, including some of the exciting 
events of Election Night that are not generally known. 

^leanwliile, in addition to the negative difficulties of 
apathy and despair, there were numerous positive troubles 
that needed nnmediate attention. I shall describe one 
of these problems in which I was called upon to take 
a hand personally in straightening it out. It concerned 
the ajjpointment of a Postmaster for New York City. 
Here was a dangerous political situation. The late 
John Purroy Mitchel was then Mayor of New York 
City, and was making a splendid record. His presence 
in that position was of course a standing annoy- 
ance to Tammany Hall, which he had fought all his life. 
Tammany was already irritated enough at the Adminis- 
tration, because of President Wilson's unbending oppo- 
sition. Some of the party managers in the Administration 
at Washington had tliought to placate Tammany by a 
tardy recognition of the "Wigwam" in the shape of an 
ap])ointment of a Postmaster agreeable to Murphy. 
Postmaster General Burleson had manipulated this ar- 
rangement, and when I arrived in Washington, I found 
that the appointment of a Tammany man to be Post- 



238 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

master had proceeded so far that the commission was on 
President Wilson's desk for him to sign. The man to 
be named was Joseph Johnson, who was an intimate asso- 
ciate of Murphy's, and who had done some very aggressive 
pubhcity work for Tammany Hall. Murphy had had 
him appointed Fire Commissioner of New York under 
Mayor Gaynor, and Mayor Mitchel had displaced him 
when he succeeded Gaynor. In retaliation, Johnson had 
taken great pleasure in spreading political propaganda 
adverse to Mitchel, so that there was an intense political 
feud between the two men. I realized that Johnson's 
appointment as Postmaster would deeply offend the 
better element of the Democrats in New York, and would 
cause such dissension as probably to result in our losing 
the state and national election. I knew, too (and this 
was perhaps of even greater importance), that Johnson's 
appointment would be so repugnant to the New York 
World that this brilliant champion of President Wilson 
and his policies would be disgusted and would lose the 
fine enthusiasm that made its support so effective. I 
therefore went to the White House, and called upon 
President Wilson. 

I presented my arguments against Johnson's selection 
with all the force of which I was capable, but found that 
the President took only a languid interest in my attempt 
to re-open a subject which he considered closed. The 
nearest approach to rousing him which I achieved, was 
when I pointed out to the President that Johnson's ap- 
pointment would ahenate John Purroy Mitchel. He 
thereupon flashed out with, "Mitchel is no help to us 
anyway." I then realized the President's deep irritation 
at Mitchel's active campaign for military preparedness, 
which he had pushed so vigorously that it amounted, on 
the one hand, to a threat that he would leave the party if 
a preparedness programme were not undertaken, and on 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 239 

the other, to a serious embarrassment of the President's 
carefully considered foreign policy. The President finally 
tried to dismiss the subject by saying that I had come too 
late, that Burleson had arranged the whole matter, and 
that the commission was on his desk for signature. I then 
asked him as a personal favour not to sign the commission 
for a few days, and to this he consented. 

I then made a call upon the Postmaster General. Mr. 
Burleson evidently misjudged the temper of my resolu- 
tion. In our association in the campaign of 1912 he had 
never seen me thoroughly aroused, and did not realize 
that I was so now. He argued the matter in a soothing 
manner, and at length made me the astounding proposal, 
not only that I should assent to the nomination of John- 
son, but that I should write a letter to the President com- 
mending it. I evidently astonished the General with the 
vigour of my reply. I informed him emphatically that I 
would not write such a letter, and practically challenged 
him to see which of us would have the final say regarding 
the nomination. 

I next sought Colonel House to get his advice and 
cooperation. I got only the advice— and a glimpse into 
the true nature of his relationship with the President. 
He told me that it was his custom to present freely to 
the President his views upon questions of the moment, 
but that he believed that it was the President's duty to 
decide, and that once the President had expressed an 
opinion, it was not proper for him to argue the matter 
with him. 

I did not accept Colonel House's advice. I was con- 
fident that my judgment of the Johnson appointment was 
sound, and I felt no hesitation in renewing my effort to 
convince :Mr. Wilson. I returned to the White House, 
and resumed my argument. I pointed out to the Presi- 
dent the danger of losing the enthusiasm of the New York 



240 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

World and the extreme importance of carrying New York 
in the fall election, and the embarrassment which Johnson 
would cause us in that effort. "Do you mean to say," 
demanded the President, "that if I appoint Johnson Post- 
master, it will cost us New York in November?" 

I understood the President's psychology well enough 
not to answer with a direct affirmative. If I had said 
"Yes," the Scotch-Irish in him would have instantly re- 
plied, "Then, I don't care if we do lose it." Worse yet, 
he would have doubted my own loyalty and fighting spirit. 
I replied, therefore, somewhat less directly. Recalling 
Mr. Wilson's enthusiasm for golf, I said: "No, Mr. Pres- 
ident, I do not mean that. What I do mean is that you 
will put an enormous bunker in our way and it will require 
great skill for us to get over it." This answer pleased 
him, and we continued the discussion. "Whom else could 
I name?" he asked me. I answered truthfully that I 
had no candidate; and that I was concerned only to pre- 
vent Johnson's selection, and had not the slightest objec- 
tion to his selecting a good Tammanyite for the position. 
I added that two Tammany men occurred to me as being 
unobjectionable. State Senator Robert E. Wagner, or 
Assemblyman Alfred E. Smith. 

The President finally agreed not to appoint Johnson, 
and several days later, telegraphed me in New York, 
asking me to offer the position to Senator Wagner. I 
did so, and almost persuaded him to accept it, with his 
proviso that he should get Murphy's consent. This he 
failed to obtain, so that for the rest of the year the Re- 
publican incumbent continued to hold the office. Tam- 
many would not have been placated anyway by this one 
sop thrown to them at the last minute, and, on the other 
hand, I had the satisfaction of preventing the defection of 
Mitchel and the weakening of the New York World^s 
support. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 241 

President Wilson was re-nominated unanimously at 
the Convention at St. Louis in July. The next question 
was to name the Chairman of the Campaign Committee 
so that we could proceed at once to vigorous action. I 
was suggested for the position, and I promptly refused 
to consider it, pointing out that my antagonism to Tam- 
many would certainly cause the organization in New 
York to resent my appointment. The various state or- 
ganization leaders were already irritated enough over the 
lack of consideration that they had received throughout 
the Wilson Administration. Some of them were deter- 
mined to revolt unless a chairman should be named from 
the recognized party workers of the National Committee. 
The President has the right to name the man who shall 
manage his campaign for reelection, and his advisers were 
distinctly worried over the attitude of the organization 
leaders. I was asked to suggest someone to act as Treas- 
urer of the Campaign Committee, and I mentioned 
Vance McCormick of Pennsylvania. This probably sug- 
gested a solution of the difficulty, and the President 
shortly afterward named IMcCormick chairman of the 
Campaign Committee. As ]McCormick was a regular 
party leader, and was besides very popular, there could be 
no objection to this choice. It proved indeed a very happy 
one. All who know INIcCormick personally are unani- 
mous in their appreciation of his high character and of 
his utterly charming personality. He is a most unusual 
mixture of forcefulness and sweetness of spirit. His 
selection was an ideal one. The concord which prevailed 
at Democratic head(|uarters throughout the campaign of 
1916 was in pleasing contrast to the fretful bickerings of 
1912, and this difference was due chiefly to McCormick's 
influence. 

I devoted myself, as I had in 1912, chiefly to the finan- 
cial side of the campaign. This time I had powerful 



242 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

assistance. Thomas L. Chadbourne, Jr., and Bernard 
M. Baruch were particularly valuable allies. I had only 
to suggest, to one or the other, where I thought they might 
find some prosperous and as yet untaxed Democrat, to 
have him eagerly exclaim, "I'll get him," and neither of 
them ever failed to make good his boast. Some gave 
cheerfully out of their abundance, as did Edward L. 
Doheny, whom I personally solicited and who contributed 
$50,000, which he later got back, and a quarter of a mil- 
lion more, by taking a sporting chance on a close election 
and betting heavily on Wilson's success. Others gave 
equally greatly out of meagre resources. Of these, the 
most touching was the gift from the late Franklin K. 
Lane, who had saved up a thousand dollars in the pre- 
ceding six months and gave it out of the fulness of his 
patriotism and his personal affection for the President. 

Perhaps the most amusing episode of our campaign 
for party finances was our experience with Henry Ford. 
One of our plans called for an extensive campaign of 
newspaper advertising, which would require a large sum 
of money. Someone suggested that Mr. Ford, in view 
of his interest in world peace and in President Wilson's 
peace record, might be willing to supply the funds. After 
some correspondence. Ford agreed to meet Vance Mc- 
Cormick in New York, and in August, 1916, they met at 
luncheon in McCormick's rooms at the Biltmore Hotel. 
The luncheon party consisted of Ford, McCormick, 
Thos. A. Edison, and Josephus Daniels. All four men 
are well known for their temperance proclivities, and 
doubtless they lived up, on this occasion, to their profes- 
sions and their usual practices. It must have been either 
the intoxication of political ideas, or the effervescence of 
youthful spirits which prompted them after luncheon to 
dispense temporarily with the serious business in hand, 
and enter into a lively competition in high kicking in the 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 243 

sitting room of the suite in friendly but vigorous rivalry 
to see which could first kick the chandelier. None of them 
reached this goal, but Henry Ford, who started his busi- 
ness life by repairing bicycles, set a new world's record 
by topping the other three several inches in this pedal 
competition. To make sure that my memory of this 
event was correct, I wTote to Vance INIcCormick for veri- 
fication. His reply is worth repeating: 

Dear Uncle Henry: 

Your recollection of the Ford-Edison luncheon was in general 
correct. The luncheon was held in ray sitting-room in the Biltmore 
and the invitation was arranged through Secretary Daniels who was 
present at the luncheon with Mr. Ford and Mr. Edison. As I re- 
member, John Burroughs was also present. I will have to confirm 
that, however, through the newspaper accounts of the luncheon. . . . 

During the luncheon, as I remember it, the principal topic of dis- 
cussion was the question of the best diet for an active man to produce 
the greatest results and extend one's life to a ripe old age. Mr. 
Edison started the discussion by stating that he lived principally on 
hot milk and bread. This lead to a general discussion, but the prin- 
cipal debaters were Mr. Edison and Mr. Ford, each advocating his 
own diet. Finally the debate waxed so warm that a demonstration of 
athletic ability was proposed and I think it was Mr. Ford who stated 
that he could kick higher than Mr. Edison, whereupon as we left the 
table a high kicking contest was indulged in and the marks made upon 
the wall, and my recollection is that Mr. Ford was the highest kicker 
although, I believe, the contest was a close one. 

The lunch party was a most enjoyable affair and carried off more 
in the spirit of schoolboys than that of statesmen and geniuses. . . . 

With kindest regards, I am 

Very sincerely yours, 

(Signed) Vance C. McCormick. 

This expansion of movement on Ford's part, however, 
suffered a severe contraction when the subject of finances 
was resumed. He interposed objections to every argu- 
ment that was made for his contribution to the advertis- 



244 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

ing campaign. He objected to giving money for political 
purposes, because he had heard so much about improper 
expenditures, and he was afraid that some of his money 
might go that way. He stood firm in that position even 
after it was pointed out to him that advertising rates were 
easily determined, and the expenditures could be checked. 

Exhausted by their efforts to pin Ford down to a 
definite proposal, McCormick and Daniels brought him 
over to Democratic headquarters, introduced him to me, 
and, as McCormick expressed it, left him to my tender 
mercies. I re-argued the points they had covered, and 
found out Ford's real position. He would contribute, 
but he wanted terms that would advertise himself and his 
cars. The advertisements, when published, must be in 
the form of a statement of Ford's personal views on the 
campaign, and must bear his signature. In addition, as 
compensation, we were to guarantee him the privilege of 
calling upon the President, so that he might lay before 
him the plan which he contemplated of adding the women 
in his employ to the men who were already benefitting by 
the minimum wage of $5 a day. He wanted the Pres- 
ident, he said, to get the credit for advising him to make 
this arrangement. No doubt, he was even more anxious 
to get the publicity that would come from making the 
announcement after the visit. 

We accepted Ford's proposition, but he drove a hard 
bargain, for, after all, his contribution was a small one, 
and absurdly disproportionate to his means and to his 
professions of interest in the election. 

One minor incident of the campaign had a significant 
bearing on the subsequent career of Senator Carter Glass 
of Virginia. President Wilson asked me to see Mr. 
Glass and persuade him to accept the position of secretary 
of the Democratic National Committee. He gave no 
reason for this request, and I had considerable difficulty 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 245 

with Mr. Glass, who shied away from the suggestion. I 
assured him that we did not expect him to perform any 
routine duties. We wished him to accept the post only 
so that we might have him at hand to consult upon ques- 
tions of campaign strategy as they arose. He finally con- 
sented. From subsequent developments, it was evident 
that Mr. Wilson even then had ]Mr. Glass in mind for 
higher honours, and wished to use this means of bringing 
him more prominently before the general public, so that 
he would be more readily accepted by national opinion 
when the day came for an appointment. 

We realized that the election at best was going to be a 
very close one. We felt reasonably sure that the dis- 
affection of Tammany in New York, and of the Roger 
Sullivan organization in Illinois, would cost us those two 
states. We had to make up their expected loss in other 
directions, and for this reason we concentrated on Ohio 
and the states of the Pacific Coast. I was very much 
astonished when ^Ir. Elbert H. Baker, the proprietor of 
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, came into headquarters one 
day and assured us that we would carry Ohio by 75,000 
votes. I had no such hopes, and regarded ]Mr. Baker as 
a well-meaning enthusiast. Some days later, however, in 
conversation with Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, 
he assured me that his namesake was not far wrong in his 
estimate. Both were subsequently justified by events, as 
Ohio gave President Wilson 90,000 more votes than INIr. 
Hughes. 

One of the most useful individual contributions to our 
ultimate success in the Pacific Coast states was the vigor- 
ous campaign waged in the West by ^Ir. Bainbridge 
Colby on his own initiative. INIr. Colby, it will be re- 
called, had been a Republican, but in 1916 he was attracted 
by the progressive character of Woodrow Wilson. He 
therefore aligned himself as a member of the Democratic 



246 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Party, and became one of President Wilson's most ardent 
supporters. His services were of the greatest value. 

Despite our anxieties, we came to Election Day with 
hopes so high that they amounted to complete confidence 
in the result. So sure was I of the outcome, that I invited 
as many of my political friends as remained in New York 
(most of the National Committeemen had gone to their 
homes to vote) to join me at a dinner at the Biltmore on 
Election Night, November 6th. We arranged to receive 
the returns at the table, and planned that the occasion 
should be one of progressive jubilation. 

When the dinner began, we were a happy party. Mrs. 
McAdoo's vivacity was the keynote of an evening full of 
jest and laughter, and of confident anticipation of victory 
and four years more of Democratic control of National 
policies. Ever>i:hing went merrily until about nine 
o'clock, when unfavourable returns began to filter in, and 
gloom began to settle on the assembly. Nervousness 
gave way to consternation when, about ten o'clock, we 
received word that the New York Times and the New 
York World had flashed their beacon lights to announce 
that the Republicans had won. Mr. McAdoo sank deep 
in his chair, the picture of dejection. Mrs. McAdoo's 
vivacity and appetite fled together. They excused them- 
selves comparatively early, and departed. Our dinner 
soon became, what it was afterward aptly called, a 
"Belshazzar's Feast." The party broke up, and those of 
us who had been active in the campaign, headed by Vance 
McCormick, hurried back to headquarters on Forty- 
second Street. The news from New Hampshire, Minne- 
sota, and California was especially encouraging. We 
resolved that, whatever else happened, this should not be 
another Tilden-Hayes defeat. We sent for Attorney 
General Gregory, and at our request, he telephoned to 
United States District Attorney Anderson in Boston, 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 247 

ordering him to send deputies at once into New Hamp- 
shire, to see that no violations of the election laws were 
permitted, and especially to guard against the reported 
intimidation of election officials preparing their returns. 

The newspaper reporters were flitting back and forth 
between our headquarters and the Republicans, and we 
got from them a report that financial men were gathering 
in the headquarters of the enemy, and were raising an 
enormous fund to affect the returns from the West. We 
used the reporters to carry an ultimatum to the Repub- 
licans. We reminded them that we had control of the 
Federal legal machinery, warned them that we had 
already put the United States authorities in all doubtful 
states on the watch, and assured them that if the proposed 
fund were raised, it could only be for illegal purposes, and 
that if this effort were not instantly stopped, the whole 
crowd would find themselves in jail on the following 
morning. If they seriously contemplated such action, this 
threat was effective to stop it, and no effort was made by 
the Republicans to use funds improperly. 

We then concentrated our attention upon California. 
Within an hour had secured a through telegraph wire 
to Democratic headquarters in San Francisco and ar- 
ranged that every precaution be taken to secure a fair 
count throughout the state. 

We kept a close watch also on Minnesota, where, if we 
had needed it, I have always been convinced a recount 
would have given us a majority that would have made the 
loss of California a matter of no moment. We all spent 
the entire night at headquarters, my son going out at 
three o'clock in the morning to bring us in hot rolls and 
coffee. At six o'clock in the morning, our collars wilted, 
our dress shirts soiled, and looking generally bedraggled, 
we took taxis to our several residences to refresh our- 
selves with bath and breakfast, and to change into business 



248 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

garments. By eight o'clock everyone was back at head- 
quarters, and we worked through that entire day and until 
midnight without sleep. Our reward was the final assur- 
ance of victory. 

Woodrow Wilson was again President of the United 
States. The nation could count upon an uninterrupted 
and consistent policy through the critical winter of 1916- 
1917, and the world was the gainer by the exalted leader- 
ship and sustained nobility of policy which marked our 
reluctant, but high-minded, entrance into the World War, 
and its progress to a victorious conclusion. 



CHAPTER XIII 

MY MEETINGS WITH JOFFRE, HAIG, CUHRIE, AND PERSHING 

JUST one week after the United States entered the 
war, President Wilson invited twenty-four men 
from all parts of the country to meet in Washington 
on April 21, 1917, to consider means of financing the 
American Red Cross. As I was one of the group, I 
came to Washington a day earlier, and a few of us met 
at dinner. Of the guests that I can now recall there were 
Charles D. Norton, Cornelius N. Bliss, Jr., Cleveland H. 
Dodge, Vance ^IcCormick, and Eliot Wadsworth. We 
all agreed that the funds should be raised by a nation- 
wide popular subscription. The impression of all those 
present, with the exception of myself, was that about 
five, or at the most ten, millions could be raised for this 
purpose. I vigorously contested this point of view, and 
suggested that the minimum sum that we should start out 
to raise was fifty million dollars. I outlined the terrific 
needs, not only in this country, but also in Europe, for 
help of this kind. None of them agreed with me that as 
large a sum as fifty millions could be secured, and they 
finally said: "If you feel this way about it, you propose it 
at the full committee meeting to-morrow." 

The next day, when the committee was in session, I 
made the proposition and was astonished that none of 
those present at first grasped the idea that the American 
people could be induced to subscribe fifty million dollars. 
I then spoke a second time and told the committee that 
the American Jews alone (of whom there were only three 

249 



250 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

million) were then engaged in raising a fund of ten 
million dollars for their co-religionists abroad, and point- 
ing to my friend, Julius Rosenwald, added: "There is one 
man in this room who individually obligated himself to 
contribute up to one million dollars to that fund. And 
I have no doubt there are several other men in this room 
who could and would subscribe one million dollars to the 
Red Cross, to say nothing of the other patriotic Americans 
who would do likewise." 

When our committee finally selected Harry P. Da- 
vison, of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Company, to be 
chairman, some of them hesitatingly told him of my sug- 
gestion that fifty million dollars be raised, adding that 
they thought my proposal was absurd. "You are right," 
he said, "Mr. Morgenthau's proposal of fifty milHon dol- 
lars is absurd — absurdly inadequate. At least one hun- 
dred million dollars will be required, and that is the 
amount we must determine to raise." 

This was an inspiring example of those qualities of 
imagination, vision, and daring, which had made Mr. 
Davison, while still a young man, one of the foremost 
leaders of American finance. His decisive leadership and 
fiery energy aroused the enthusiasm of his associates, and 
put the work instantly in full swing. 

I suggested that the best way to get our campaign im- 
mediately and dramatically before the public was to 
obtain a proclamation from the President commending 
our plan to the nation. "We have a psychological op- 
portunity," I declared, "to reach the pockets of the people 
through an appeal to their eager desire to serve. At the 
most, only a small percentage of the population, and those 
the young men, can be active combatants. But every 
citizen wants to feel that he is himself enlisted in the 
common cause. Active membership in the Red Cross is 
such an enlistment, because the Red Cross will be the 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 251 

second line of our army, inspiriting and heartening the 

boys." 

They all agreed, but they feared it would take some 
time to get such a proclamation from the President, be- 
cause he was so very busy, and it would be hard for him to 
find time to write it. I thought the proclamation could 
be secured by the following morning, and told Mr. Davi- 
son that Secretary Franklin K. Lane was the man in 
Washington who could most nearly phrase an idea in 
the language of the President, and that if we could get 
him to write the proclamation for us, I had no doubt that 
the President would sign it without substantial change. 
We went to Lane's office, and it was a pleasure to me to 
introduce these two able men of such diverse achieve- 
ments, and to see how promptly each fell under the spell 
of the other's charm of manner. Mr. Lane readily agreed 
to draft the proclamation, and promised to have it ready 
in a day of two. "We want it in twenty minutes!" I 
exclaimed. "I will give you the ideas we want expressed, 
and you can write it as well in that time as in as many 
days." "All right, go ahead," he replied, and after a short 
discussion, he reached for pen and paper, and within a 
few minutes had written the following message to the 
American people, that thrilled the country and made 
easy the path of the Red Cross Campaign. 

Throughout the land the spirit of the American people has been 
aroused and an intense desire to render some service that will give 
proof of their patriotism is moving every heart. As not more than 
one million of our citizens can be utilized to serve in the Army and 
Navy of the United States and be given the privilege of risking their 
lives on behalf of our beloved country, it is the duty of all the rest to 
do something to help those who are at the front. Sickness and dis- 
comforts can only be prevented by the hearty cooperation of those 
who remain at home. 

To give every one a chance to share in the defense of our country : 



252 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, and President 
of the American National Red Cross, do appoint and proclaim that 
May 30th, 1917, be dedicated, in addition to our devotion on that day 
to those who have heretofore sacrificed their lives on the altars of 
our country, as a Red Cross day on which all our citizens should give, 
according to the measure of their ability, their money and their time 
to the American National Red Cross for the general purposes of the 
Society^ and especially for the comfort of our armed forces, the care 
of those dependent upon them, and the relief of war sufferers in 
foreign lands. We must perform this duty generously and not stint- 
ingly. No less than fifty million dollars should satisfy American 
pride. 

In a few minutes, his stenographer supplied us with 
typewritten copies, and within another hour, INIr. 
Tumulty, the President's secretary, with whom we left the 
draft, had promised to bring it to Mr. Wilson's attention 
that night. The following morning it was delivered to 
us, bearing the President's signature. The confidence in 
America's generosity was more than justified, as the Red 
Cross drive brought in 110 milHon dollars. 

In the following month (May, 1917) I had a curious 
experience with the ineptitude that able men sometimes 
display in public affairs. In that month a number of 
gentlemen gathered for the purpose of formulating a 
plan for a government-backed campaign to inform the 
American people more fully regarding the European 
situation, our aims in the war, and our proposed methods 
of waging the war. This meeting was one of the first 
steps taken in the direction which ultimately led to the 
formation of the Bureau of Public Information, which 
performed the dual function of distributing govermnent 
war publicity in this country and American war propa- 
ganda abroad. This was a non-partisan gathering, and 
the following gentlemen were present: Charles E. 
Hughes, Thomas L. Chadbourne, Jr., John Purroy 
Mitchel, Hon. Wilham R. Willcox, Chairman of the Re- 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 253 

publican National Committee, William Hamlin Cliilds, 
George W. Perkins, Frank Munsey, Willard D. Straight, 
William A. Prendergast, Robert Adamson, and myself. 
We had a very interesting discussion, and at the close, 
Vance JNIcCormick and I were appointed a committee to 
submit the results to the President. That evening, Frank 
Munsey called me up on the telephone and after a great 
panegyric of John Wanamaker, and enlarging upon his 
vast experience as an advertiser and publicity man, and as 
though he were delivering a nominating speech, suggested 
Mr. Wanamaker as War Publicity Director. I curtly 
answered that he would not do. He then veered over 
into a similar and extended eulogy of George W. Perkins 
who, he declared, and with some justice, was one of the 
great experts in the securing of publicity. I was really 
taken aback that a man of Mr. jNIunsey's acuteness should 
suggest to me that I propose one of these two men, both 
of whom had so openly and unflinchingly attacked Presi- 
dent Wilson during the recent campaign. I reminded 
him that Mr. Wanamaker had paid for lavish advertise- 
ments to bring about the defeat of President Wilson. 
Then my sense of humour overcame my annoyance: the 
very absurdity of his suggestions was irresistibly funny, 
and I asked iNIr. INIunsey wliy he did not suggest George 
Harvey as his third choice and so complete the trinity of 
Wilson's strongest opponents in the publicity line. 

Another episode, as felicitous as this one was inept, oc- 
curred in this same month. The occasion was the reception 
which New York City gave to ^larshal Jotfre, Rene Vivi- 
ani, and Arthur J. Balfour, who were visiting this country 
as the heads of the French and British mission sent to ex- 
press the appreciation of their govermnents upon our 
entrance into the war, and to advise with us upon the best 
means of making our military alliance effective. New 
York City enthusiastically welcomed both its distinguished 



254 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

guests, and Mayor Mitchel and his Reception Committee 
were happy at the opportunity to give these visitors the 
freedom of the city. To prevent any possibiHty of 
wounded susceptibilities, by seeming preference of one 
guest over another, separate ceremonies were arranged for 
each. 

At all these ceremonies, including the reception of the 
men at the dock, and even at the special dinner given to 
a select seventy at Sherry's, the lead was always given to 
that great citizen and grand old man of American private 
and public life, the late Joseph H. Choate. There never 
Was any doubt as to who should be selected to match the 
generations of culture and statecraft so ably represented 
by Balfour, the nephew of Salisbury, the vivid French 
eloquence so charmingly illustrated by Viviani, and the 
French eminence in the art of war which Marshal Joff re, 
the hero of the Marne, so adequately typified. Joseph H. 
Choate was preeminently the man whom we could proudly 
call upon; who in his own person combined all the requi- 
sites of social grace, intellectual power, and international 
distinction. 

The climax of the entertainments offered our guests 
was a great dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, at which Mr. 
Choate presided. As I was also a member of all the 
committees, and was in addition an ex-Ambassador, I 
was constantly at his side. I know of no one, either in 
my own experience or in history, who at that advanced 
age, was his equal in youthful energy, in ebullition of 
spirits, in consummate geniality, and spontaneity of wit; 
nor any one who so wonderfully combined the learned 
la^vyer, the able diplomat, and the democratic citizen. He 
was universally recognized as the "highest type of living 
American," and we were proud to match him against the 
world. 

When he made his speech with Joffre, Viviani, and Bal- 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 255 

four at his side, and delivered that famous message to the 
officials at Washington: "For God's sake, hurry up," and 
was greeted with the thunderous applause that followed, 
he reached the pinnacle of his career. As he stood there 
looking at that audience, radiating forth one of his beam- 
ing smiles, full of human sympathy, of hope and faith in; 
America, it thrilled the audience and gave to the British 
and French representatives an umnistakable assurance 
that America was with them, and would stay ^Wth them to 
the finish. It was a glorious and most fitting close to 
Choate's great career to be permitted to use his last 
thoughts and energies, in his eighty-fourth year, for the 
welfare of his countrv. A few days later, while the effect 
of his last speech was still penetrating into the farthest 
corners of the earth, he passed away, mourned by all. 

In June, 1917, tlie President asked me to go abroad 
upon a secret diplomatic errand, which I am not even yet 
at liberty to disclose, further than to say that I learned 
that what the President hoped for could not be accom- 
plished, and after a few days I proceeded to Paris. 

This was one of the great hours of history. General 
Pershing had arrived with his little staff of officers and 
a few regiments of American Regular soldiers. This was 
America's first pledge toward the promise of military 
aid, which was speedily to be redeemed in terms of two 
millions of American troops in France, and final victory 
in the war. I dined with Ambassador Sharp ; and in his 
home I met General Pershing, Thomas Nelson Page, our 
Ambassador to Italy, and other prominent Americans. 
I renewed old acquaintances in the American colony at 
Paris, and soon learned the immense significance of the 
appearance of our soldiers in France. It was now the 
middle of July, and only a little earlier the French people 
had almost seemed to falter in their struggle. France 
seemed to have been bled white by three years of devas- 



256 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

tating war. Frenchmen were saying that it was as well 
to die on their doorsteps as to be led to useless slaughter 
at the front. The French Government was making a 
final desperate effort to restore the nation's confidence. 
Joffre in May had pleaded at Washington for American 
troops — "No matter how few you send, only give us the 
sight of Americans in uniform on the streets of Paris." 

I now had the privilege of watching, from the most 
favourable point of vantage, a critical test of the national 
psychology which the French Government made in July, 
1917. With a profound sense of dramatic values, they 
had arranged that the American troops should be ex- 
hibited to the French public on their Independence Day, 
July 14th, as units of a great patriotic parade. To make 
sure that they might accurately gauge the psychological 
effect, the President's reviewing stand was placed in Vin- 
cennes, where the people had suffered greatly from the 
privations of the war, and where disaffection was rife. I 
received an invitation to witness the parade from the 
President's reviewing stand, and Ambassador Sharp, 
General Pershing, and I were the only Americans so fa- 
voured. We were arranged around President Poincare, 
with Monsieur Painleve, Minister of War, and others. 
M. Painleve afterward told me that he and the President 
of the Republic had headed the procession while it was 
passing through the poorer quarters of the city, to test the 
attitude of the people before they had tasted the enthus- 
iasm which the sight of troops would naturally arouse, and 
that they had been encouraged by receiving everywhere 
a cordial and even a hearty reception. Nevertheless, I 
could plainly see the evidences of nervousness amongst 
the French officials — a nervousness which grew more in- 
tense as the military parade approached. It was some- 
what relieved as the French soldiers marched by, and were 
greeted by the hearty cheers of the people. It disap- 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 257 

peared entirely when our splendid Americans swung past 
the reviewing stand. The enthusiasm of the spectators 
then passed all bounds. To the French officials this ap- 
proval of the populace meant relief from a heart-breaking 
anxiety: to us Americans who stood with them it was an 
occasion for patriotic pride. To see the flag of our young 
nation in this old capital of Europe, and behind it those 
two thousand splendid examples of our young manhood, 
so erect in carriage, and so lithe in motion — their faces 
so eager and intelligent — their whole bearing so proudly 
representative of the millions that were to follow them, 
and to see how much their presence meant to rulers and 
people alike — all this made a picture that filled us with 
happiness. The effect upon the French nation was in- 
stantaneous and electrical. From despair, they changed 
overnight to fresh hope and confidence. Though they 
then only hoped for one third of a million reinforcements 
within a year, and little dreamed of the marvel which was 
actually performed of bringing two million men speedily 
to France, they were nevertheless enthusiastic over the 
prospect. Responsible Frenchmen urged me to advise 
President Wilson to assert himself at once as the leader of 
the whole alliance against Germany; and responsible 
Britons soon afterward added that they, as well as the 
French, would welcome a unified control of the Allies' 
political policy with President Wilson in command. I 
think it profoundly significant, in view of the later course 
of events, that the European nations thus early conceded 
the necessity that Americans should lead. 

I was still further informed of the real thoughts of the 
French officials when a few days later I dined with Pain- 
leve, who spoke with deep appreciation of the help which 
America was beginning now to extend. He spoke quite 
freely of the recent disaffection that had come among the 
French people after three years of terrible fighting and 



258 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

heavy losses, and with gratification of the change that had 
come over pubhc opinion with the arrival of the American 
troops. He covered at length the dangerous situation on 
the Russian front, the blunder committed at the beginning 
of the war in the failure of the Entente fleet properly to 
pursue the Goehen and the Breslau, the capture of which 
would have kept Turkey out of the war and spared them 
the difficult problem of the Balkans. He discussed also 
the difficulties of the French in governing their colonies 
and dependencies; and, with special significance, he de- 
clared that negotiations for peace with Germany could 
not be commenced before the complete evacuation of all 
the territory then occupied by the enemy. 

Painleve was especially solicitous regarding our ability 
to solve the problem of transportation of men and muni- 
tions to France. He was concerned over our ability to 
drill into a real army more than two hundred and fifty 
thousand men within a year. He asked eagerly about 
President Wilson's character, especially whether I 
thought he had the determination which, now that we had 
entered the war, would cause him to see it through with 
energy. He feared, from the hesitancy that we had dis- 
played before entering, that we might be planning a luke- 
warm effort. He was delighted when I assured him of 
the iron resolution of President Wilson, and of the habit 
of the American people, once aroused, to see a fight 
through to the finish. 

In the course of that evening (Saturday), he asked 
me whether I had posted myself on the military conditions 
in France. I told him I had projected a trip to the 
British front, and was only waiting for the arrangements 
to be completed. He asked me whether I would not like 
to see something else in the meantime, and I replied that 
I should like very much to see the French front, and 
especially to visit the parts of Alsace which the French 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 259 

had at last reunited to France. He was somewhat taken 
aback when, having asked me when I should like to go, I 
replied on the following Monday. Nevertheless, he 
proved himself possessed of a capacity for prompt action 
and execution. At ten o'clock on INIonday morning, there 
appeared at my hotel a very dapper French officer. He 
saluted, introduced himself as Captain Jaubert of General 
Headquarters, and added: "At your command. I am to 
accompany you on your mission — your visit to the front." 
A few moments later, a heavy-set, very intelligent-looking 
man, in the garb of a chauffeur, presented himself, like- 
wise came to attention, saluted, and informed us that the 
car was ready. Shortly thereafter, we were on our way. 

Our party consisted of Captain Jaubert, my old friend 
Schmavonian of the American Embassy at Constan- 
tinople, Professor Herbert Adams Gibbons, and myself. 
Our first objective was Gondrecourt, the camp and head- 
quarters of the then tiny American Expeditionary Force. 
Our route took us through that part of the battlefield of 
the INIarne which was nearest to Paris, and as we sped 
along, Jau})ert explained to us, by means of sketches 
traced on the window glass with his forefinger, the tactics 
of that battle. 

Arrived at Gondrecourt, we saw a splendid sight. Here 
were American boys in American uniform, with Ameri- 
can automobiles and other equijiment. It gave us a 
keen sense of home. Captain Jaubert, whom I had by 
this time discovered to be not only a captain but a marquis, 
and a nephew of the Duke of Montebello, soon located 
the headquarters of General Sibert. We were here in- 
vited to dine with General Ponydreguin, the commander 
of the famous "Blue Devils," a very charming gentleman. 
He commanded the French troops in this neighbourhood, 
as General Sibert commanded the Americans. After 
dinner, we adjourned to the camp headquarters, which I 



260 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

found these two gentlemen shared. As neither spoke 
the other's language, it was amusing to see them, while 
using an interpreter to converse with each other, carry 
through the French politenesses of direct conversation, 
smiling at each other, and bowing and courtesying. Gen- 
eral Sibert especially finding it difficult to accommodate 
his rather formal American manner to the livelier conven- 
tions of Continental usage. 

After a tour of inspection, on the following morning, 
of the interesting activities of the camp, we proceeded on 
our way to Domremy, the birthplace of Joan of Arc, 
where I wished to visit the church, which is a shrine to 
her memory. By this time I had discovered not only that 
my escort was a marquis, but, more surprising, that our 
chauffeur had been in private life a member of the Paris 
Bourse. The car in which we were riding belonged to 
him, and he had volunteered to do his bit for his country 
by putting the car at the Government's service, and offer- 
ing himself as its chauffeur. Captain Jaubert, in accord- 
ance with military traditions of discipline, had treated him, 
a mere sergeant, as impersonally as if he were another 
piece of the car's mechanism. When we drew up at Joan 
of Arc's Chapel, and dismounted to enter, I saw by his 
expression that he was as eager as I to see the interior of 
this famous shrine. The yearning look on his face, as he 
stood before the portals, which an absurd military conven- 
tion forbade him to enter in company with us, who were 
no better than he, was too much for me to withstand. I 
asked Captain Jaubert to relax the rigours of discipline 
for the moment, and allow him to accompany us. The 
Captain acquiesced with characteristic French politeness, 
though I suspected he did not especially rehsh it; but the 
chauffeur's appreciation was sufficient recompense for 
whatever slight damage was done to military tradition. 
The Captain himself had a fair grievance against military 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 261 

fate : he was a graduate of St. Cyr and had resigned from 
the army during the Dreyfus episode, with the result that 
he had had to reenter the army as a captain, while most 
of his classmates at the Military School were at least 
colonels and many of them generals. 

That night we reached Thann. We arrived about 
nightfall, and were met at the town boundary by the 
^layor. He invited us to spend the night with him at 
his suburban home, as it was not safe for us to sleep in the 
town. I was ushered into the best room in his house, and 
found that the mirror in the bathroom, as well as the tub, 
was almost demolished. The ^layor explained that this 
damage had been done during the week, and that he had 
not had time to repair it. The next day was a great 
Catholic holiday, Assumption Day, and we were invited 
to attend the services at the church of St. Theobald. This 
spectacle was intensely interesting, because the parents 
of these people, though French by origin and sympathy, 
had been compelled by the Germans to rear their children 
in the German tongue, and consequently, though the first 
sermon of the celebration was delivered in French by a 
chaplain of the French army, a second sermon was then 
delivered in German by an old abbe. The French gen- 
eral explained to me that he saw no reason why he should 
deprive the inhabitants of the town of their religious 
comfort simply because they could not understand 
French. 

At one o'clock we were entertained at the hotel by the 
two oldest inhabitants and most respected citizens of the 
town, Messieurs Weber and Groshents. At this luncheon 
they paid me one of the most touching compHments I have 
ever received in my life. They were men of about sev- 
enty. Both had been of age during the Franco-Prussian 
War, and both had continued throughout the forty- 
three years of the German occupation, since that war, to 



262 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

be unconquerably French in their patriotism. During the 
luncheon, while the conversation was lagging, owing to 
my insufficient knowledge of French, the two old men 
whispered to each other for a few minutes, and then one 
of them, Mr. Weber, turned to me, and said in German : 
"We have just released each other from the vows we made 
in 1871, that we would never again speak German in 
public. But we want to enjoy your company and we 
want so much to hear you talk to us, that we think we are 
justified in suspending our agreement." 

We then had a most delightful conversation. Mr. 
Weber told me how, in 1871, he had taken the French flag 
which had flown over the City Hall until the German oc- 
cupation, and secreted it in the back of a sofa in his 
parlour, and how he had taken the flag staff and hidden 
it in his garret. Then, when the French entered the town 
in 1914, he ripped open the sofa, took out the flag, fas- 
tened it back on its staff, and at seventy years of age had 
proudly presented it to President Poincare in celebration 
of the return of Alsace to France. 

Leaving these delightful old gentlemen and their quaint 
city of Thann, we motored southward. At dinner next 
evening we were entertained by the Mayor of Mazevant, 
Count de Witt Guizot. After a very pleasant evening 
with him, and as we were about to take our leave, I in- 
quired if he were related to Francis P. G. Guizot, the 
famous historian. He smiled, and replied: "Slightly; he 
was my grandfather." 

Another day of interesting travel took us through the 
Alsatian provinces to Belfort, and there we abandoned 
the automobile, and returned by train to Paris. 

A few days later I had the pleasure of renewing my 
acquaintance with Marshal Joffre, which I had first made 
at the civic receptions in New York. I called upon him 
at his headquarters at the Military School in Paris. Mar- 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 263 

shal Foch had succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief of 
the French armies, and Joff re was now engaged chiefly in 
training staff officers, and in advising the High Command 
when his judgment was needed in council. The Marshal 
gave me, with great frankness, his ideas upon what Amer- 
ica should do to make effective our military participation 
in the war. 

Immediately after our interview I had a memorandum 
prepared by the gentleman who acted as my interpreter, 
from which I have made the following extracts: 

In the present warfare there is a most vital need for artillery 
officers and for general staff officers. The American Department of 
War must realize this. It is not enough to have the men, the other 
officers, and even the equipment. The framework of the army is far 
from being complete or efficacious before you have a sufficient number 
of trained artillery and general staff officers. In order to train these 
officers for active field service, they should be sent to France. They 
can at once be sent to the front where for a week or two they can see 
the work done there. The general staff officers can then attend courses 
in the general staff school, and the artillery officers can be attached 
to French artillery regiments until they are thoroughly familiarized 
with the work. 

Besides the artillery and general staff officers, the Marshal advises 
to send in turns a certain number out of the two hundred newly 
promoted American generals to join the French divisions, army corps, 
or armies where they can obtain very valuable practical information 
most useful to them when they take over commands in the field. 

The Marshal said that he had something very delicate to add. He 
had come to know that in America there was a certain class of officers 
whom he would call "the old officers" — those who would like to see all 
promotions and appointments made solely on the basis of seniority. 
Between these old officers, and the younger officers, the Marshal 
understood, there was or there might be friction. The Marshal said 
that in an emergency like the present the things to be taken into 
consideration are efficiency and ability. When he took over the com- 
mand, the same question came up in France. The Marshal did not 
hesitate to drop from the ranks a large number of officers and to 
appoint in their stead younger and more capable men, without taking 



264 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

into consideration the seniority of the former. Without clearly 
stating it, the Marshal very delicately left the impression that in 
his opinion politics should play no part in military appointments. 

The Marshal said that twice he had Mr. Roosevelt next to him 
at dinner in America. Mr. Roosevelt seemed anxious to come to 
France with some volunteers and fight against the Germans, and he 
(Mr. Roosevelt) would be satisfied by being only second in command 
under a general. Marshal Joffre was not of the opinion that the 
realization of Mr. Roosevelt's plan could be of great service and there- 
fore desired to dissuade him from attempting to carry out his plan. So 
the Marshal told Mr. Roosevelt, "My Colonel, whatever you may be, 
you cannot be second!" 

In recapitulating, the Marshal said, "Do not wait until you are 
entirely ready in America. You should not attempt to act before 
you are ready, but there are things which you can do at once by 
degrees, little by little, while you are preparing yourselves. Send 
officers to be instructed for the artillery and General Staff services, 
send some generals, and put them at once in contact with our generals 
at the front. Let a regiment or a battalion go to the trenches. From 
time to time send some men over." The Marshal's idea seemed to be 
that while the main preparation and equipment should be carried out 
in America, some men and officers should be sent over for instruction 
in France, and the arrival from time to time of men and officers would 
create a favourable impression on the minds of the French who would 
see that America was doing something. 

The Marshal spoke very highly of General Pershing. 

Two days before my conversation with Marshal Joffre, 
I had arranged a dinner in honour of General Pershing. 
On the morning of that day, however, I received a letter 
from his secretary postponing the engagement. It read 
as follows: 

American Expeditionary Force 

Office of the Commanding General 

Saturday, August 18, 1917. 
My dear Mr. Morgenthau: 

General Pershing has requested me to inform you that much to his 
regret he will be unable to dine with you and Mrs. Morgenthau this 
evening. The General has had an engagement of long standing to 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 265 

take a particular trip with General Petain when the latter was able 
to arrange it. This morning General Petain has just sent General 
Pershing word that he has made all arrangements for them to leave 
this afternoon. So under the circumstances the General hopes you 
will understand why he is unable to be with you this evening. 

Very sincerely, 

W. C. EusTis, 

Secretary. 

When we met at dinner, four days later, the true mean- 
ing of this letter was revealed. General Pershing explained 
that "his engagement of long standing to take a particular 
trip," when translated, meant that General Petain had 
promised him to let him witness the battle at Verdun the 
first time active operations were resumed there. On the 
morning of our first appointment, General Petain had sent 
General Pershing word to come to Verdun at once, and 
Pershing had, of course, cancelled all conflicting engage- 
ments, and left for the front. He described to us what 
he had seen at Verdun, and spoke with the eloquence and 
enthusiasm of a boy who has just seen his first Big 
League game of baseball. Pershing gave us a vivid pic- 
ture of a modern battle. He had accompanied General 
Petain to an observation dugout, where they could see the 
battle through the telescopes, as well as keep in touch with 
its multitudinous operations by telephone. The General 
in command of the division at this point was receiving 
messages from all parts of the battlefield, and transmit- 
ting them to Petain. Word would come that X had 
taken another hill, and Petain would tell him to hold it or 
to move on, making his decisions for the various parts of 
the battlefield in accordance with his general plan of 
military action. 

General Pershing was especially interested in a double 
coincidence of this visit. The Division Commander in the 
duofout was General Gouraud. Oddly enough, General 



266 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Gouraud had been the French mihtary attache in Tokio 
when Pershing was American attache at the same point. 
In the dugout they fell to comparing notes on their expe- 
riences together in Japan in 1905. General Pershing 
recalled that one of their acquaintances there had been the 
German attache, whom they had both detested. "By the 
way," he inquired of Gouraud, "what has become of that 
little German, Von Etzel, that we used to know in Tokio?" 
"Come here," Gouraud replied, "and look through this 
telescope. That is Von Etzel's army retreating." 

Three days later, my eagerly anticipated trip to the 
British front was undertaken. Schmavonian again 
accompanied me. Lord Esher, who had arranged this 
trip for me on behalf of the British, introduced to me 
Captain Townroe of the British General Headquarters 
Staff, a fine, determined gentleman, who had been the 
private secretary of Lord Derby during the recruiting 
period in England and was the author of a popular play 
called "Nations at War." General Pershing had kindly 
designated Captain Quekemeyer, then as now his per- 
sonal aide, to accompany us as an American representa- 
tive. They first escorted us to an old chateau occupying 
the land where the battle of Agincourt was fought. First 
we visited two American regiments of engineers. It was 
a great revelation to see how two or three West Point 
officers had been able to whip into perfect shape 1,200 
civilians and out of them to create splendid regiments. 
General Biddle escorted me to their headquarters, and we 
reviewed the regiments. We then went to Roisel where 
we visited the 12th U. S. Engineers. They were just 
making camp. Their colonel apologized for the chaotic 
condition of affairs. I kept looking at him, thinking that 
I had met him before. At length I made a few inquiries 
of him as to his antecedents, and where I could have met 
him, when suddenly, having penetrated through the years 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 267 

which had left its marks upon him, it dawned upon me 
that this man, Colonel C. M. Townsend, was the same 
Townsend that had attended the College of the City of 
New York with me in 1870, and we had not seen each 
other once in the ensuing forty-seven years! This was 
one of the most remarkable feats that my memory ever 
surprised me with. 

When we returned to the chateau that evening, our 
genial host, Colonel Roberts, introduced us to a number 
of British writers who had arrived that day. Lovat 
Fraser, then leading editor of the London Times; C. J. 
Beattie, the night editor of the Daily Mail; L. Cope 
Crawford, of the London Morning Post; H. B. Tourtel, 
of the Daily Express; Sydney Low, and a few others. 
After supper, we sat in the parlour in the old chateau, 
with its engravings by Wilkie on the walls, and the old 
furniture, etc., and were reminded that it was right on 
the battlefield of Agincourt. I listened to Sydney Low's 
story of his wTiting "The Conquest of Attila," who was 
assisted in his war by the Ostrogoths (Austrians) and 
opposed by the Franks, Visigoths, etc., and how Attila 
had said that God would help him to destroy the Chris- 
tians, and he would be a scourge to them and sack their 
cities, or, as Low put it, "just like Emperor William, who 
told his army to act like the Huns, and they are doing it." 

Another evening, we had discussions with some of the 
British labour leaders, who had come over to visit the 
front under the direction of INIr. J. E. Baker of the 
Ministry of Munitions. They were amazed when I told 
them that it was ridiculous to think that democracy could 
be established in a few years. They were really surprised 
to think that twenty-five years was inadequate to reform 
the world. 

Another evening, Colonel Roberts asked me whether 
he could invite Major Tibbetts who was then in command 



268 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

of Tank Town, which they called the headquarters of the 
Tank Corps in that neighbourhood, as the Major was very- 
anxious to meet me. I told him I had never heard of the 
Major, but that I should be very glad to meet him. It 
turned out that Major Tibbetts was in command of one 
of the landing parties at the Dardanelles and that he was 
most desirous to ascertain what took place on the Turkish 
side of the lines at that time. So here we sat in France 
and completely dovetailed our two stories into each other. 
He told me of his experiences — how he, with his party, 
had reached the cliffs, and had to dig themselves in, and 
the Turks were pushing them hard, while the British ships 
were attacking the Turks on the beach, and they were 
suspended between the two fires, totally ignorant of the 
actual state of affairs, while we in Constantinople were 
>vondering why those two detachments had not cooperated. 
He explained it, but as his explanation was rather con- 
fidential, I do not care to repeat it. 

One day. General Charters, who was in charge of the 
Intelligence Department, came to see me, and asked me 
whether I was perfectly satisfied with my progranmie. I 
looked at him quizzically and said: "Satisfied? Yes. 
Perfectly? No." He said: "What else do you want?" 
I told him that I had heard so much recently of the activ- 
ities of Sir Arthur Currie, that I was anxious to meet 
him. He told me that it was impossible, as General 
Currie was then conducting the attack on Lens. I said 
to him: "Look here. General, when I took charge of 
British affairs in Constantinople, and found that the 
secretaries and clerks were much inclined promptly to 
say 'No' to all requests from British citizens, I promul- 
gated Order No. 1, which was, that no one but myself 
could say 'No' to any request from any citizen of any 
country whose affairs we had taken charge of, and, 
furthermore, that I would not say 'No' unless I had first 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 269 

received a 'No' from the Grand Vizier, or from the State 
Department in Washington." 

General Charters said: "I am on, sir," and left the 
room. He came back in twenty minutes, and said: "Sir 
Arthur Currie most cordially invites you to lunch with 
him to-morrow at one o'clock." I said: "Accepted with 
great pleasure ; but tell me, how did you do it?" He said : 
"I called up Sir Douglas Haig, and told him your story. 
He called up Sir Arthur Currie, and the invitation was, 
as you see, promptly extended." 

Rather than repeat from memory the very interesting 
interview I had witli Sir Arthur, I shall quote verbatim 
from the diary which I kept at the time, giving my impres- 
sions as they were written fresh at the moment: 

August 25, 1917. Received by Currie, a fine, tall, well-set, calm, 
determined man. He was anxious to make sure of our names. Even 
there he showed his thoroughness. We repeated our names and 
handed him our cards. We were presented to his staff, Generals 
Radcliffe and Sinclair, Prince Arthur of Connaught, elc, and went 
straight to lunch, "hot curry," liver and bacon, rice pudding, salad and 
fruit, being served. We discussed Turkish conditions, the price of 
land there, etc., Currie saying that their expected land grants would 
hardly be appreciated. We also discussed general affairs of war, 
Radcliffe and Connaught joining in the conversations, as they were 
anxious for facts about the Dardanelles and Bagdad. 

After luncheon, the General took us into his office from two to 
three o'clock. We talked of warfare, the battle of Lens while it 
was in progress. He said that he still had in his corps men who 
were very proud of their victorious record and tried to live up to it. 
He spoke fairly freely, and explained his method of leap-frog attack, 
laying great stress upon a full knowledge of the enemy's position and 
strength, etc., when about to make an attack. His command had 
never failed to get their objective and retain it. Example of spirit 
of men: Two units who after capturing a height and then a quarry 
were driven out of latter and he was wondering what to do and 
studying the situation, when he heard that the men without waiting 
for orders, of their own initiative, attacked the quarry again, regained 



270 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

it, and are now in possession of it. Currie bemoaned an accident to 
his ankle which he had sprained playing Badminton. He disliked 
going amongst men who were real casualties, while his injury was 
caused by a game. He favours reserving and using different and 
fresh troops for repelling counter-attacks and attributes much of his 
success to this policy. He has strong common sense. His men co- 
operate. Artillery answered S. O. S. call in thirty seconds, and thus 
helped to relieve infantry promptly. He favours light railways 
which he has greatly extended in this section. Carries two thousand 
tons a day on them instead of expected one hundred and fifty tons. 
Spirit of victory induces Smith, R. R. engineer, if requested by 
Jones Chief Gunner for more shells to make special trip sans hesita- 
tion. Canadians originated raiding trenches without capturing them. 

When complimented on calmness amidst storm, etc., as several 
generals and flyers were waiting outside to report and for conference 
for further action in battle in progress, he evidently was totally ab- 
sorbed and enjoying our talk. He said: "The Great God has given 
me this calm nature, which prevents my becoming excited, and I use 
it to study everything which I think will help to lick the Boche." 

He showed great confidence in the final issue of the war, and was 
delighted with the U. S. entry into it, and said: "I do not believe that 
God or Fate has brought English-speaking people together intending 
them to lose." He objected to Canadians being treated patronizingly 
by the British, and he said: "England doesn't want it, why should 
we? We are not fighting for England, but for the British Empire 
of which we are a part, and which we want perpetuated, and we are 
fighting for our skins." He insisted upon the imperative need of a 
G. O. C. [General Officer Commanding] having undisputed and un- 
trammelled power to send home incompetent officers and disregarding 
political influences. Men should only be sent against enemies with 
good leaders. It is strange all the generals speak of the Germans as 
"he" and "him." 

Canada is provided with clothing and food by England. It pays 
them for everything. He recognized that the United States could not 
have entered earlier, as their people were not favourable. Hoped 
the U. S. would profit by their experience and avoid their mistakes. 
"The lessons of the war should teach the U. S. how to use their great 
power to advantage and secure permanent victory and peace." He 
said he knew a great deal about the U. S., as he lived in Vancouver, 
and was a National Guardsman, colonel of a regiment, then had a 
brigade, a division, and now a corps. 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 271 

After our talk, we entered his Rolls Royce, and went to Vimy 
Ridge accompanied by G. S. O. No. 3 of the Corps, a fine intelligent 
fellow. We walked eight hundred yards over a long row of slats 
laid down for King George who made the same trip, and after passing 
through a trench, reached an observation tower. It had an opening 
about 8 ft. wide and was 20 inches in height, and was used by a 
sergeant and two assistants. Had powerful glasses and maps show- 
ing the country. We could see the Battle of Lens in its progress. 
The ground around it was pock-marked with shells. The panorama 
of the fight was thrilling to behold. It gave an impression of the 
enormity of the task to make any progress at all. We wore steel 
helmets and carried our gas masks with which we had practised in 
the auto, as we were well in the danger zone. Some shells dropped 
within 400 yards of us. The N. C. O. [non-commissioned officer] in 
charge pointed out some Boches running on the streets of Lens and 
also corpses lying in little gray heaps. Sixty-pounders and other 
shells were being hurled through the air above us right into Lens and 
Mericourt and in return the Germans were firing on Vimy. Two 
airplanes were flying right over the battlefield, with German shells 
exploding several hundred feet below them.' 

When I had started on this trip with Sir Douglas Haig 
as my chief objective, my wife had begged me to ascertain 
from Sir Douglas why he had not captured Lens. The 
reader will recall that, at that time, there were constant 
reports about the Battle of Lens, and it was very puzzhng 
to us that, although the British seemed in complete control 
of the batteries around Lens, they hesitated about taking 
the town. Therefore, one of the first questions I put to 
Sir Douglas when I met him three days after my meeting 
with Currie, was the one entrusted to me by my wife, and 
in reply he explained to me that it was more efficacious 
to use Lens as a means of diminishing the Germans' un- 
used reserve than to take possession of it. 

The full record of my meeting with Sir Douglas Haig, 
quoted from my diary, is as follows : 

Tuesday, August 28, 1917: It rained hard. We left the Chateau at 
11 A. M. . . . We had an accident with auto forty minutes from 



272 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

headquarters, were hastily transferred to another car, an open Sun- 
beam, with torn top wliich I had to hold down, raining, rushing madly, 
stopped by R. R. crossing, and once by a long line of troops, but we 
reached there at 1 p. m. 

Sir Philip Sassoon, M. P., private secretary of Sir Douglas Haig, 
received us and ushered me into private room of D. H, We talked for 
ten minutes before, and forty minutes after, lunch, alone; most in- 
teresting and instructive. He showed me and explained maps of 
Ypres, Lens, etc., and lists of German divisions and the steady diminu- 
tion, since April 15, of their unused reserves which declined from 44 
to 5. He said that Germans having concluded that the French were 
used up and the British unprepared, commenced transporting troops 
to the Russian front, and among other things he wanted to save 
Russians, so he ordered attack on Lens and made attack on Ypres. 
He also wanted to convince Lloyd George and others of his capacity 
to push back the Germans and settle the war on western front. He 
thinks it wrong tactics to attempt to secure small victories at Gaza or 
Bagdad. The war can only be won by attacking the German army. 
The only place to reach them is at the western front. Germans will 
never admit or consider themselves defeated even if all their allies 
are whipped and forsake them. Hence everybody should concentrate 
attention here. Italians should also help. . . . 

Thinks Germans are beginning to realize their position and possible 
defeat and great loss of economic position, and will in October or so 
offer peace terms, which it will be difficult to have French decline. 
He begs and urges that no early, incomplete peace be made, now being 
the day or time of reckoning. He thinks the Germans are much 
worse off than is known. He is positive that England will hold out 
until we can come to assist. He says it is unnecessary expense 
for us to prepare great airplane units, and that shelling German cities 
will not end war, or shorten it. It is right here, with artillery and 
infantry and of course a proper amount of airplanes, that work must 
be done. 

He believes that the U. S. is destined to play a very important part, 
but thinks we must admit it is also self-defense that prompts oiir 
actions, and not only the altruistic spirit. He said the French were 
not ready at Havre to receive U. S. troops, and it would be much more 
effective if U. S. troops joined them and received their hints in 
good English which they understood. He is pleased that U. S. 
troops believe in same system of warfare as English, offensive and 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 273 

hitting out and not defensive. He explained their method of attack- 
ing, their intention only to move far enough each time to secure a 
height and drive the Germans from points of advantage and be pre- 
pared for counter attacks and each time absorb some German divisions. 
Lays great stress on gradual diminution of German unused reserve 
division. 

Engineers built 600 miles of standard and narrow-gauge railroads. 
They have 600 locomotives and 6,000 cars. Shortage of freight cars 
was great handicap. They took old rails from England, South Amer- 
ica, and U. S. to build these lines. He hopes we will send more rail- 
road men and engineers. Quick transporting of men and material 
greatest help. He thinks war has at last given Great Britain an 
empire and hopes it will also give them the U. S. as a permanent ally. 
War must be won by Great Britain and U. S. jointly. Said their 
own experience will make them patient with us. Spoke most flatter- 
ingly of Pershing and our American troops. Thinks their tempera- 
ment is so spirited and warlike. . . . He makes the impression 
of a determined experienced soldier, who has a well-defined plan 
which he is sure will lead to victory and wants everyone to adopt it 
and fight it out here in Flanders. He neither drank nor smoked at 
lunch. 

From our luncheon with Sir Douglas Haig we returned 
at once to Paris. My diary for the next day contains the 
following : 

Wednesday, August 29, 1917: Called at headquarters. Saw Col. 
Harbord, and then General Pershing . . . Harbord told me 
French put Americans south of them and not next to English, because 
they, themselves, wanted to be defending Paris and did not want 
foreigners to determine destiny of France. It sounds plausible. He 
again suggested a visit from Baker, who could then talk more con- 
vincingly to Americans and would understand needs. Pershing told 
me that every sinew of his muscles, every artery leading to his heart, 
and all his energy and hours are devoted to working for success. He 
again expressed hope of United States fighting to the end. He spoke 
of needs of dockage for the ships, thinks it will require 30 to 40. 
Feels we need our own locomotives and cars to send men, etc., to 
front; claims our camps will be so located that we can send men to 
any part of lines. Shipping is needed to bring men over, and then 



274 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

their food and ammunition. He says nothing can be secured here — 
all must come over. Hopes seized German ships will answer; if not 
we should insist upon Allied ships, including Japan and Italy. It 
will take fully a year before we can be of much actual assistance. 

A few days later, I sailed for America to make my re- 
port to President Wilson. It was my intention, upon 
my arrival in New York, to make this report in the form 
of a letter, and with this idea in mind, while still aboard 
ship, I wrote several drafts of it by hand, and in New 
York dictated a letter in final form to the President under 
date of September 15, 1917. I finally decided, however, 
that a verbal report was better, and consequently, I pro- 
ceeded to Washington, and on September 19th, called on 
the President. I gave him at considerable length the 
information I had gathered. As our conversation, how- 
ever, was simply a verbal enlargement of my letter of the 
15th, I will quote that letter here. It is, I think, of some 
historical importance : 

September 15, 1917. 
My dear Mr. President: 

After close observations, visiting fronts, conversations with mem- 
bers of the French Cabinet, Generals and others, both French and 
British, I have arrived at the following conclusions, which I submit 
for your consideration, and expect to elaborate upon, when you 
grant me an interview. Among the men I have talked with are 
Generals Sir Douglas Haig, Sir Arthur Currie, Jolfre, Pershing, 
Sibert, Biddle, and others, and also Messieurs Painleve, Ribot, Cam- 
bon, and Steeg of the Cabinet. 

No separate peace can be made at present with the Turks as they 
still think that the Germans will be victorious, and because many of 
the members of the Union and Progress Committee are enriching 
themselves through the continuation of this war. 

The Turkish atrocities perpetrated against Armenians, Syrians, 
and Arabs establish beyond doubt that the Turks should no longer be 
permitted to govern non-Moslems and non-Turks of any description. 

The British and French successes at Verdun, Ypres, and Lens have 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 275 

reduced the German unused Reserve Divisions from fortj'-four in 
April to five in August, and have demonstrated that the German 
positions are not, as has long been believed in the United States, 
impregnable. The British and French are now confident of final 
victory, depending, however, on the cooperation of the United States 
Army. 

For moral and political effect, they deem it highly desirable that 
more American troops, though unprepared, be sent immediately. 

The German autocracy with its strong leadership and blind follow- 
ing of its allies will never yield until German military prestige has 
been destroyed. 

A test of strength will have to take place on the Western Front. 
Victory will be won as much through the steady hand and intrepid 
determination of tlie leader that will direct the united allied forces 
as by the physical resources that will be employed. 

Both British and French authorities have separately admitted that 
in none of the Entente countries is there a statesman who would 
satisfy them all as a leader. They think that your consistent attitude 
in this great struggle between democracy and autocracy and all your 
messages and particularly your masterful answer to the Pope's propo- 
sition, indicate you as the leader — to take immediate control of the 
situation. They do not want you to wait until our Army, Navy, and 
Aircraft are equipped and at the front. They are willing to discount 
all this, as they need your guiding and universally trusted hand now 
at the International Helm. 

Traditional mutual jealousies and ambitions, and their consequent 
suspicions disqualify any European statesman for that leadership; 
while the knowledge that America has no political ambitions in any 
part of the Old World, and the esteem which they feel for you 
personally would secure you the enthusiastic support of all the states- 
men of the Allied Governments and their peoples. All our European 
co-belligerents are deferential towards us, receptive to American 
ideas and ready, as far as possible, to meet our wishes. I, therefore, 
venture to urge upon you to give this matter your very serious thought. 
The need for a disinterested leader is absolutely imperative. 

In addition to the power you exert through the Government at 
Wasliington, the diplomatic missions in the Entente Capitals, and 
the American military missions in Europe, you might appoint a 
special commission to be stationed in Europe to represent you in all 
civil and political matters. It is difficult here to enumerate the va- 
rious activities which you could entrust to such a Commission. This 



276 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Commission should assist, in case of need, the American military 
authorities in their relations with the French or other European Gov- 
ernments and try to avoid and adjust all possible friction between 
them; it should be in touch with the political parties, the civil author- 
ities, journalists, and all men who have a share in the forming of 
public opinion; it should collect all possible information, especially of 
a political nature, and report the same to you; it should, at the same 
time, through the press, the platform, and other similar means, impart 
American information and exercise an influence on French public 
opinion in the direction you may desire. I lay stress on this matter 
of exercising an influence on French public opinion because French 
affairs are now subject to petty political differences, schemes, and 
counter-schemes of those who are in power and men like Caillaux, 
Briand, Clemenceau, and others of the opposition. Such a commis- 
sion under your guidance should endeavour to exercise such a salutary 
effect upon French public opinion as to make Frenchmen forget at 
this critical juncture all their petty strifes and induce them to concen- 
trate their entire forces and energy upon the great main aim to 
destroy the autocracy of Germany, which should be declared an " in- 
ternational nuisance" for it is maintained by the Hohenzollerns con- 
trary to the wishes of many of its citizens. Even prior to the war, 
more than forty per cent, of the votes were cast by Social Democrats 
and others of the opposition. It is certainly a menace to the welfare 
and rights of self government of surrounding nations. No one feels 
this more keenly than the Germans and their descendants in the 
United States. They left Germany to escape this monster and have 
enjoyed the privilege of living anew and becoming an indissoluble 
part of this great liberty-loving nation. Alexander II emancipated 
the Russian serf; Lincoln freed the poor Negro; and it is your 
privilege to extricate the Germans from their miserable thraldom. 

Moreover, our co-belligerents have divergent and conflicting inter- 
ests, both in regard to the disposition of territories which they hope 
to liberate from their enemies, and in regard to the general problem 
of what concessions can be allowed our enemies, when the bargain- 
ing begins. 

This Commission should study these questions and all others con- 
nected with them, so that you will have your own independent up- 
to-date information upon which to act in dealing with the Allies and 
the enemies during the war and at the Peace Conference. 

Such a Commission can greatly assist you in your task to infuse 
the Great American Spirit into the Allied peoples, and so strengthen 



JOFFRE, HAIG, AND PERSHING 277 

them that they will fight for right until it is established and has 
permanently destroyed the danger of a tyrannic militarism fastening 

its clutches into the whole world. 

Yours most sincerely, 

Henry Morgenthau. 

Perhaps the most important feature of my conversation 
with the President was the word I brought him of the 
universal desire of our European associates, that he should 
exert the intellectual and moral leadership of the common 
cause. The President was deeply impressed with the 
earnestness and solemnity of this message that I had 
brought him. He seemed for the moment ahnost over- 
powered at the thought of the stupendous responsibihty 
that it thrust upon him. We now know how nobly he 
rose to that responsibility — how adequately he expressed 
and organized the moral basis of our cause — with what 
masterful and intellectual grasp and statesman's firm 
procedure he rose to be the undisputed leader of a world 
in righteous arms against the menace of autocracy. But, 
at the moment, he seemed perplexed, he seemed almost to 
despair. "They want me to lead them!" he exclaimed. 
"But where shall I lead them to?" 



CHAPTER XIV 

JOHN PURROY MITCHEL 

SHORTLY after my return from Europe, John 
Purroy Mitchel came to my house to seek advice 
on a matter concerning both the destinies of his 
city and, as the event proved, the end of his own career. 
He asked me whether he ought to run again for Mayor, 
or accept a tempting business offer that had just been 
made him. 

Mitchel was always an attractive and frequently an 
inspiring figure in municipal affairs. A typical Amer- 
ican, of fighting stock, the grandson of a man that had 
battled for free Ireland and the nephew of a politician 
that had made his mark, Purroy Mitchel, whose face and 
carriage reflected the latent power of leadership, was one 
of those young souls at once sensitive and fiery to whom 
Tammany's abuse of opportunity becomes a personal 
affront. More than once our paths had curiously ap- 
proached each other. 

Back in 1908, E. H. Outerbridge had come to my house 
and, as chairman of the Citizens' Committee in the current 
campaign, urged me to accept the fusion nomination for 
President of the Borough of Manhattan. My answer 
was: 

"President of the Board of Aldermen — yes, but no 
administrative office." 

"I'm sorry," said Outerbridge, "but the man for that 
place has already been determined upon. He is John 
Purroy Mitchel." 

278 



JOHN PURROY MITCHEL 279 

Had that answer been different, the entire course of my 
life would have been changed, for the whole Fusion ticket 
was elected, with the exception of the man at the head of 
it. Otto Bannard, who was defeated by Judge Gaynor. 
Mitchel became President of the Board of Aldermen. 

Then again, while in that office, his life touched mine. 

In 1912, he sought me in much such a quandary as that 
in which he was to find himself in 1917. He had been 
offered, and wanted to know whether he should accept, 
the presidency of a struggling mortgage-guarantee com- 
pany in Queens County. He was evidently influenced to 
come to me because I had been prominently identified 
with the Lawyers' Mortgage Co. of New York. 

This was then my advice : 

"It would be a good thing for you to get out of politics 
for a while and give the next few years to accumulating a 
competency. After that, you can reenter politics, in- 
spired by business experience and free from money cares, 
but this mortgage guarantee company is not what you 
should go into. Your talents and special training as 
Commissioner of Accounts could be much better utihzed 
in some established industrial enterprise. I think I can 
arrange to have you made the vice-president of the Under- 
wood Typewriter Company." I promptly took up the 
matter and arranged an interview between Mitchel and 
Mr. John T. Underwood, with the result that the former 
was offered the vice-presidency I have referred to, with 
the sole proviso that he must pledge himself to hold the 
position, and refrain from politics for at least five years. 
Mitchel hesitated and the old maxim came true : "He who 
hesitates is lost." His political acumen informed him that 
the succeeding autumn would offer him the best if not the 
only chance to become Mayor of his native city. Devo- 
tion to good government and a burning desire to displace 
Tammany were his ruling passions: he disregarded mate- 



280 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

rial considerations, declined the Underwood offer, and 
remained in politics. 

But our fates were not yet divorced. In the spring of 
1913 ex-President Roosevelt held a meeting of some lead- 
ing Progressives at his office to agree on a fusion slate 
for the next New York Municipal election. It was plan- 
ned to put forward a candidate who would attract all 
shades of voters but who was opposed to Tammany Hall. 
Charles S. Aronstam, who attended the caucuses repre- 
senting the Progressives of Brooklyn, writes me this ac- 
count of that gathering: 

I have been trying to refresh my recollection as to what transpired 
at the conference at Colonel Roosevelt's office in June, 1913, when 
your name was suggested as a probable candidate for President of 
the Board of Aldermen on the Fusion ticket with Charles H. Wliitman 
for Mayor and William A. Prendergast for Comptroller. There 
were present besides the Colonel, the late Lieutenant-Governor 
Woodruff, Mr. Edward W. Allen, of Brooklyn, and myself. 

You will recall that at that time Mr. Whitman was on the crest 
of the wave and he was the unanimous choice for Mayor of the 
Republican members of the Fusion Committee. The only other candi- 
date that was under serious discussion was Mr. George A. McAneny. 
Mr. Mitchel having been appointed Collector of the Port was appar- 
ently out of the running. His name was discussed but his candidacy 
had not yet reached such a stage of development as to make him a 
probable choice. Colonel Roosevelt's choice between the two was 
Mr. Whitman, not because of his superior qualifications over Mr. 
McAneny, but because of his greater availability on account of the 
tactical position he occupied at that time in the public eye and because 
he had the unanimous backing of the Republican Party: The im- 
portant consideration being the defeat of Tammany Hall. It was 
then suggested that with Mr. Whitman, a Republican as a candidate 
for Mayor, and Mr. Prendergast a Progressive as a candidate for 
Comptroller, in order to invite the support of independent Democrats, 
it would be necessary to select for the second place an independent 
Democrat, preferably one closely associated with the Wilson adminis- 
tration. 

I do not recall which one of us first suggested your name as a 



JOHN PURROY MITCHEL 281 

most desirable choice for that place if you could be persuaded to 
run. I do recall, however, that when your name was suggested, 
Colonel Roosevelt banging his fist on the desk in his characteristic 
manner exclaimed, "Just the man! Do you think he would consent 
to run?" 

However, I sailed for Europe before they could get in 
touch with me. But Aronstam was himself to take ship 
within a day or two and Colonel Roosevelt commissioned 
him to see me abroad and secure my assent. 

My recollection is that Mr. Aronstam first called on 
me in Paris and that there was then made a tentative de- 
cision, later confirmed by a letter from Aix-les-Bains. 
At all events, his mission was like that of Mr. Outerbridge 
years before, and what Aronstam had to offer me was 
what I had on that other occasion told Outerbridge I 
would accept. 

My natural question was: 

"Who is slated for INIayor?" 

"Charles S. Whitman." 

"What about Purroy Mitchel?" 

Well, Mitchel was Collector of the Port, and not con- 
sidered available, whereas Whitman, as District Attorney, 
had the centre of the stage, and would appeal to the 
popular imagination. The only other candidate that had 
been considered was ^Ir. George ^IcAneny, and the Pro- 
gressives did not think that he would be a good vote-getter. 

As Aronstam was submitting his message from the 
Colonel, my mind went back several years to a statement 
once made to me by Herr Earth, a well-known member 
of the German Reichstag. He said that men of the 
Roosevelt type would never be content to remain out of 
office, and to rest in the role of merely philosophic guides 
for the people: having once exercised power, they must 
continue to possess it. 

I felt that Roosevelt, for his own good and the good of 



282 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the people, should reenter the public service. Here, it 
seemed to me, was a chance to serve many purposes. 
Roosevelt's first demonstration of his power had been in 
municipal politics, when, as Police Commissioner of New 
York, he fearlessly enforced the liquor law. I recalled, 
too, the incident of his unexpectedly accepting an invita- 
tion to review, at that time, a parade of German societies, 
and how, arrived at the reviewing stand, he heard some- 
body unacquainted with his presence express in German 
the wonder whether "Rosenfelt" would have the nerve 
to put in an appearance at a time when he stood for a 
strict enforcement of liquor regulations, to which most of 
them were opposed. Roosevelt's peculiarly penetrating 
voice supplied the answer: 

"Hier ist der Rosenfelt.'* 

That was the sort of man New York needed in the 
present juncture. The chance ought, moreover, to ap- 
peal to him, because it seemed to me that his election 
would be inevitable, and that, as a consequence of it, he 
would very likely re-occupy the White House in 1916. 

For my part, I had just refused the appointment of 
Ambassador to Turkey, which I then considered relatively 
unimportant. I believed that I could be useful as a 
member of a possible Roosevelt municipal administra- 
tion and so I said to Aronstam : 

"I'll take the nomination if the Colonel himself will 
run for Mayor." 

Mr. Aronstam, such is my recollection, cabled home 
my decision. He received word that Whitman's name 
was to stand and communicated this to me at Aix-les- 
Bains. From there I wrote to him: 

My dear Mr. Aronstam: 

After very mature deliberation, I have concluded that I would 
not, if asked, run with Whitman. There is no use giving you my 
reasons in detail. Kindly take this as final and so inform Timothy 



JOHN PURROY MITCHEL 283 

Woodruff. I don't want to keep him and his associates under any 
mistaken impression that your telegram may have created. 

I would run with T. R. He would win and make a great Mayor. 

With kindest regards. 

Yours sincerely, 

Henry Morgenthau. 

What finally happened is still fresh in the public mind. 
Chosen President of the Board of Aldermen, Mitchel's ad- 
mirers had groomed him vigorously for the Mayoralty. 
President Wilson's appointment of Mitchel as the Collec- 
tor of the Port really stamped him as an independent Wil- 
son Democrat and placed him in the lime-hght. Elected 
Mayor, he surrounded himself with men of his own years 
and temperament. He gave the City one of its best 
administrations. 

So the circle completed itself. We now come back to 
September, 1917. Here again was this young Robert 
Emmett at my house and the first thing he said was a 
sort of echo of what he had said five years before : 

"Morgenthau, do you think I ought to run again for 

Mayor?" 

Memory paints him to-day as he stood there then, a 
hero to a vast number of New Yorkers, often erratic, 
frequently ill-advised, but still a justified hero. His 
dark brown hair was disordered, his Irish grey-blue eyes 
were bright, but he looked more matured and consider- 
ably more care-worn from his many fights and the scars 
they had left, than the man who had sought my advice in 
1912. 

It was an affecting situation. During four years he 
had done his best for the City, and that best had disap- 
pointed the professional office holders through his fixed 
determination to protect the tax-payers he had alienated 
the vast army of municipal employees, ; finally some of his 
investigations had antagonized the adherents of certain of 



284 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the Catholic charities; and he undoubtedly felt that the 
chances for his reelection had been considerably dimin- 
ished. Ought he to endeavour to complete the task that he 
had set himself or was it useless to make further efforts? 
My advice was the reverse of what it had been the last 
time : 

"You have given the public the impression that you 
would run again. You must not drop out at the last 
moment; you must not retreat under fire; you will have 
to be the standard-bearer of good government in this 
election even if you are conscious of an impending defeat." 

For anj'- writer of fiction, this episode would complete 
the chain of coincidences, yet truth forged another link. 
There was formed a citizens' committee to conduct a mass 
meeting in City Hall Park at which speakers represent- 
ing the un-bossed element of all parties should urge 
Mitchel to run again for Mayor. Charles Evans Hughes 
was one of these speakers; so was Theodore Roosevelt. 
The others were my old friend Outerbridge and myself. 
Thus it befell that here was Mitchel in office and urged to 
remain by the men who had previously played at such 
cross purposes in connection with his career. 

That was an almost unique political event. The young 
Democratic Mayor, still flushed from his fight for Pre- 
paredness, was flanked by two outstanding Republicans, 
a recent Presidential candidate, and a popular ex-Pres- 
ident ; shoulder to shoulder with these stood the head of the 
New York State Chamber of Commerce, and myself as a 
representative of the Wilson Democrats. One and all, we 
called upon him to stand again for Mayor. 

The lighter touch was not lacking. As, following Mr. 
Outerbridge and JNIr. Hughes, my turn to speak arrived, 
I turned toward Colonel Roosevelt and, recalling his 
famous exclamation about throwing his hat into the ring, 
said: 



JOHN PURROY MITCHEL 285 

"I'll now throw my hat upon the steps." 

"No, no," said the Colonel: "let me hold it!" 

He took and guarded it throughout my address. When 
he was about to speak, it was my part to return the 
favour. 

"No, thanks," said Roosevelt. "I shall need my hat." 

Why? It was illuminating to observe. 

The audience naturally shaped itself into three separate 
crowds : those directly in front of the speakers, and those 
on either side. When the Colonel's effective oratory 
evoked applause from the people directly in front of him, 
he would turn first toward the right and then toward the 
left, shaking his historic soft hat as he did so, and he thus 
always hauled the two other crowds into the circle of 
Mitchel enthusiasm. 

Purroy Mitchel was, however, fighting his last fight as 
a St. George against the Tammany dragon: Bennett in- 
sisted on running as a straight Republican and, as such, 
drew thousands of the dyed-in-the-wool Republican votes; 
the Socialist ^lorris Hillquit secured the ballots of the 
Pacifists and pro-Germans in addition to his own party's. 
On the eve of election, a party of us concluded our efforts 
by joining ^litchel in a trip to Camp Upton and addresses 
to the soldiers there. Coming home, he. Dr. Arthur B. 
Duel — who had gone along to keep the candidate's over- 
taxed vocal-cords in order — Commissioner George W. 
Bell, and I had a midnight supper at Patchogue. 

There ^litchel eased his overburdened heart. In a sub- 
dued voice that increased the effect of his simplicity and 
earnestness, this upstanding young man gave a voluntary 
account of his stewardship. He told us of some of his 
struggles in office that it would be a betrayal of confi- 
dence to repeat, many of his experiences at the Platts- 
burgh Training Camp, and much of his anxiety to do 
personally his share in this great World War. As he 



286 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

spoke of his present campaign, he showed that he antici- 
pated defeat, and was philosophically adjusting himself 
to the conditions he expected to confront on January 2, 
19 18. Some phrase of his moved me to remind him of our 
offer of the vice-presidency of the Underwood Typewriter 
Company: he frankly confessed that he would have been 
better off had he accepted it, devoted part of his youth to 
business, and left his riper middle age for public service; 
but my present belief is that this mood was the fruit of 
momentary disappointment, for, shortly after, there came 
a return of his more characteristic fighting spirit, and he 
was telling us that he would not accept a flattering offer 
just received from an important corporation — he was 
again going to act as he had acted five years before and 
would give his services to his country so soon as his term 
in the Mayoralty had ended. 

That course he consistently pursued. His death in a 
falling airplane at a Texas camp, while qualifying as an 
army aviator, was mourned by the entire nation. 



CHAPTER XV 

A HECTIC FOETXIGHT AND OTHERS 

THE INIitchel campaign was an incident — import- 
ant and affecting, but only an incident — in the 
stirring summer and fall of 1917, when we had 
just entered the war. INIy trip to Europe that summer, 
on a government mission, fixed a new and broader pur- 
pose in my mind. While in Turkey in 1914 to 1916 I 
had seen only the German machinations and listened to 
the German apologies. Now I had observed the devasta- 
tion wrought in France and heard from French and 
British lips their version of the war. Moreover, my talks 
with Joft're, Painleve, Sir Douglas Haig, Sir Arthur 
Currie, and others, showed me how fearfully low the spir- 
its of the Allies had fallen before we entered the struggle. 
Prussianism had defied and all but conquered the world; 
its victims were at the very edge of despair; as for 
America, it was not yet fully cognizant of the sad condi- 
tions prevailing in Europe, because censorship, guided 
by political considerations, prevented the full truth from 
crossing the Atlantic. 

When I returned in September, I was impressed not 
only with the necessity of continuing my activities to alle- 
viate the suffering of the Armenians and the Jews and of 
doing all I could to eliminate the cause of that suffering, 
but I was much more impressed with the bigger thought 
of also doing all in my power to rouse American senti- 
ment to the fact that this great struggle was dependent 
upon our activities to replenish the diminishing resources, 
both physical and moral, of the countries which were im- 

SJ87 



288 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

mersed in this tremendous conflict. I determined to make 
use of this special knowledge, which it had been my for- 
tune to acquire, to help defeat the Germans. 

This dual determination made the ensuing period one 
of intense activities, varied, yet not conflicting. Things 
happened pell-mell, but are more coherent if grouped topi- 
cally rather than chronologically. 

The Armenian outrages were constantly in my mind, 
and I wrote for the Red Cross Magazine an article on 
the Turkish massacres concluding: 

I wonder if four hundred million Christians, in full control of 
all the governments of Europe and America, are again going to con- 
done these offenses by the Turkish Government! Will they, like 
Germany, take the bloody hand of the Turk, forgive him and decorate 
him, as Kaiser Wilhelm has done, with the highest orders? Will 
the outrageous terrorizing — the cruel torturing — the driving of 
women into the harems — the debauchery of innocent girls — the sale 
of many of them at eighty cents each — the murdering of hundreds of 
thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other 
hundreds of thousands — the destruction of hundreds of villages and 
cities — will the wilful execution of this whole devilish scheme to 
annihilate the Armenian, Greek, and Syrian Christians of Turkey — 
will all this go unpunished? Will the Turks be permitted, aye, even 
encouraged by our cowardice in not striking back, to continue to 
treat all Christians in their power as " unbelieving dogs " ? Or will 
definite steps be promptly taken to rescue permanently the remnants 
of these fine, old, civilized. Christian peoples from the fangs of the 
Turk? 

That was a, tragic story, but it had its lighter phase. 
Following a common custom, the editors of the Red 
Cross Magazine printed on the front cover of their pub- 
lication my name and the title of the article. The juxta- 
position was unfortunate and startling : 

"Henry Morgenthau — TJie Greatest Horror in History!" 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 289 

"That's pretty rough," wrote the New York Sun. "We 
always reaHzed fully that the former Ambassador to Tur- 
key was not a handsome man, but the Red Cross Maga- 
zine really has gone too far." 

The Jewish question interested me quite as deeply, and 
on December 12, 1917, I pubHshed in the New York 
Times a carefully considered statement. 

This was the fruit of my thirty months' experience with 
the problem of the Jews in Turkey and of my observations 
at first hand of their status and projects in Palestine, and 
was in line with my purpose to do more than alleviate the 
present sufferings of the Jews. Because this statement 
is important in its bearing upon my chapter on Zionism, 
I am reproducing it here in full. As my present opinion 
on Zionism is the outgrowth of years of sympathetic re- 
flection, continuous observation, and conscientious per- 
sonal study of the facts, I should like to emphasize the 
date of this publication, and thus indicate the progress of 
my views toward their settled conviction regarding Zion- 
ism : 



To the Editor of the New York Times: 

The fall of Jerusalem, its recapture by Christian forces after 
twelve centuries of almost uninterrupted Mohammedan rule, is surely 
an event of the greatest significance to us all. American Christians, 
and indeed Christians everywhere, will rejoice that the Holy Land, 
so well known to them through both the Old and New Testaments, 
has been restored to the civilized world. 

I, with my co-religionists, rejoice not only as an American but as 
a cosmopolitan who recognizes the fertile seeds of civilization in all 
truly religious faith and experience. For the whole civilized world, 
the 10th of December, 1917, will be remembered as a day of profound 
historical interest, and, I hope also, of large meaning for the future. 

During my recent visit to Palestine, I was greatly impressed by the 
progress made by the Jewish colonies. These colonies had developed 
under most adverse circumstances, and had demonstrated fully that, 
when real opportunity is given, the people of the Jewish faith can 



290 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

create most creditable self-governing units. With Palestine liber- 
ated from the curse of Turkish misgovernment, this work will go on 
with ever greater success. All Jews, both the Zionists and those of 
us who do not take part in the advocacy of the entire programme of 
the Zionists, rejoice at the prospect which is now open. Many Jews 
will wish to settle in Palestine. Many others, as well as great 
numbers of Christians from all lands, will wish to visit the Holy 
Land, and there undertake studies in history and religion. Many of 
us hope that the Hebraic language and the elements of the Hebraic 
culture will develop there sufficiently to be again, in a new way, of 
genuine service to the moral and cultural life of the world. 

But at this point I wish to sound a note of warning to my co- 
religionists on the one hand, and on the other strongly emphasize to 
all my American fellow-citizens that certain positive facts should not 
be overlooked at this time. I believe that the leaders of the Zionists 
have always perceived that it would be impossible to have all the 
Jews return to Palestine, and that the others who hold to that Utopia 
will soon be disillusioned. It is almost unnecessary to refer to the 
fact that it is economically impossible to settle 13,000,000 people 
upon the narrow and impoverished lands which were the ancient soil 
of our people. But this is not what I wish to emphasize chiefly. The 
fact that has vital significance to me, and, I believe, to a majority of 
those of my faith in America, is that we are 100 per cent. Americans, 
and wish to remain so, irrespective of the fact that some of our 
blood is Jewish and some of our clay is German, Russian, or Polish. 
To us and our children America, too, is veritably a Holy Land. 

It has been a great mission of the Jewish people, through their 
religious faith, to teach the whole Western world that there is one 
God. The great moral and spiritual mission of the American people, 
in my opinion, is to teach the world that there must be one brother- 
hood of humanity. I hold that it has been nothing short of provi- 
dential in the history of the human race to have had America pre- 
served as an undeveloped continent until this later period. We are 
making it the experimental station for the intergrafting of various 
peoples. The ideal of America is, through freedom and equal oppor- 
tunity, to permit the complete physical, intellectual, and spiritual 
development of all our citizens. The American people are not the 
descendents of the original English, French, Dutch, or Spanish 
settlers. The American people to-day are composed of every inhab- 
itant within our borders who loyally supports the principles which 
form the roots of our national life and well-being. To me it seems 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 291 

clear that the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, the Constitution, the laws and, above all, in the moral attitude 
of mind which marks the true American, require much of us. Above 
all, they require mutual service, equality as regards the highest as 
well as the less important goods of life, and, high above all, complete 
toleration and mutual respect. These are the veritable foundations 
of human brotherhood. This is America's fundamental contribution 
to tlie world's civilization. It is not essential in this connection, even 
if space permitted, for me to indicate and emphasize the part which 
the Hebraic laws, Hebraic morals, and the Hebraic religion, through 
the Old and New Testaments, have had upon the American mind 
and the American soul. I leave that to the historian. I am here 
referring to the present and the future, rather than to the past. 

We have now come to a great crisis in the history of the world. 
The essential thing for us is to fight for universal peace as a basis 
for a practical world brotherhood. This great result is not only 
possible, it is necessary if civilization is to endure. Let me ask my 
co-religionists, face to face and heart to heart, how many of you 
would be willing to forswear the great duty we have here and the 
great task which history gives us of being true, real, unalloyed Ameri- 
can citizens in this time of resplendent ideals and momentous deeds, 
in order to devote your entire lives to the upbuilding of Hebraic in- 
stitutions in Palestine. I, for one, do not see that it is at all necessary 
to ignore the lesser in order to serve the greater purpose. But let 
me repeat most emphatically, we Jews, in America, are Jews in 
religion and Americans in nationality. It is through America and 
her institutions that we shall work out our part in bringing better 
ideals and morals and sounder principles of policy to the whole world. 
Likewise the Jews of the British Empire, that is probably 99 per cent, 
of them, have not the slightest intention of deserting their British 
fellow-citizens. The same holds good as to France and Italy. If 
Russia maintains, as we all hope and pray that she may maintain, 
a republican form of government in wliich the elements of liberty are 
saved to her people, the Jews of Russia will very soon come to feel 
the same fellowship with all their Russian neighbours that we now 
have as regards our fellow-Americans. 

And yet Zionism is more than a mere dream. Its theories, upon 
which so much emphasis has been placed during the last generation, 
contain practical elements which are not above realization. I have 
reflected much upon this matter and I have had the privilege of dis- 
cussing it with leading Jews the world over. I most sincerely trust 



292 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

that those of my religious faith who are now imbued with this idea will 
not permit impracticable schemes to make impossible the realization 
of the good that is in Zionism. The Jewish communities in Palestine 
should be given every opportunity for development. Some Jews 
now in America will wish to live there permanently; many others, 
who have not the slightest intention of surrendering their citizenship 
in the countries where their children are to live and work, will still 
wish to have a share in the preservation and development of a free, 
Jewish Palestine. But not only Jews are interested in Palestine; 
every truly educated and liberal-minded person in the world will wish 
to see the ancient Jewish culture given an opportunity for expression 
and growth. Furthermore — and this is what I beg my Jewish fellow 
religionists not to lose sight of for a moment — all Christendom, too, 
looks upon Palestine as the Holy Land, in which every believing 
Christian has a deep religious interest and a right to share. The 
thousands of Christians who will annually visit Palestine will wish 
to feel that they have a part in all the holy traditions which cluster 
about the sacred localities and the remaining monuments. 

As regards tlie administration of Palestine, this phase of the subject 
does not seem to me to present any insurmountable difficulties. 
Under an international and inter-religious commission there could be 
a very large measure of self-government on the part of the local 
citizenship. The whole world is now moving away from the emphasis 
hitherto placed upon extreme nationalism. The forces of internation- 
alism must be developed practically and systematically. What an 
error it would be, at the very time when the primary message to the 
world of the Jewish people and their religion should be one of 
peace, brotherhood and the international mind, to set up a limited 
nationalist State and thereby appear to create a physical boundary 
to their religious influence. Let us give the strictly Hebraic culture 
a better chance than this would imply. Let us permit it in its original 
form and purity to test out its strength with other religions amid 
twentieth century surroundings. Whatever value it may have for 
the world's civilization will thus be fully realized. Meanwhile 
nothing should draw our attention from the infinitely greater oppor- 
tunities of the age in which we live. After the many centuries of 
restrictions, persecutions and cruelties suffered by our people we are 
at last sharing the blessings of freedom and of universal fellowship 
in all the great democratic countries of the world. 

Henry Morgenthau. 

New York, Dec. 11, 1917, 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 293 

Sunday, March 3, 1918, was the last day for me to 
function as presiding officer of the Free Sjoiagogue. Dr. 
Wise had asked me to occupy his pulpit on that date, be- 
cause he had to go to Washington on business of the 
nature of which I was then unaware. The next day, the 
New York Times contained the following statement, tele- 
graphed from Washington, INIarch 3rd: 



Approval of the plans of the Zionist leaders for the creation of a 
national Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine was given to-night by 
President Wilson to a delegation of representative Jewish leaders 
who spent an hour at the WTiite House in conference with the Pres- 
ident over the international status of the Jews around the world. 
The delegation was headed by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New 
York. 



It affected me strangely to think that while I was tak- 
ing Dr. Wise's place in the pulpit, he should be helping 
to secure the approval of the President of the United 
States for a plan of which, because of my knowledge of 
conditions in Palestine, I totally disapproved. I tele- 
phoned Dr. Wise that this occurrence determined me to 
resign the presidency of the Free Synagogue. He called 
at my house and tried to dissuade me, but my duty seemed 
clear. 

In effect, I said to the doctor: "You are entitled to 
your views, and I to mine, which I propose to express as 
forcibly as I know how, whenever I think they will do the 
most good for the welfare of the Jews. I still hope it 
will never fall to my lot to attack Zionism in public, but 
I assure you now that I will not shirk the responsibihty 
if the time ever comes when it seems right that I should 
handle it without gloves. It would then be a great em- 
barrassment for me to be president of your Synagogue." 

The resignation read thus: 



294 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

March 3, 1918. 
Executive Committee, 

Free Synagogue. 

Dear Sirs: 

After twelve years of incumbency of the office of President of the 
Free Synagogue of New York, I am impelled to resign that office. 
Much as I have enjoyed the honour of filling this position and the 
happy and inspiring association with its Rabbi, Dr. Wise, I feel that 
our views of Zionism, in the advocacy of which he is one of the 
leaders, are so divergent and apparently irreconcilable, that it seems 
necessary for me to withdraw from what may be called the lay 
leadership of the congregation. 

I would have no question arise as to Dr. Wise's freedom or my own 
freedom regarding Zionism. 

With the sincere hope that the friendly and cordial relations which 
have long obtained between Dr. Wise and myself will be unaffected 
by this decision, I am 

Yours cordially, 

Henry Morgenthau. 

On March 10th, at a dinner given by the Executive 
Committee of the Isaac M. Wise Centenary Fund, which 
was attended by about fifty rabbis, I made the following 
speech, which was published in the next day's Times : 

The greatest fight in history has just been fought between democ- 
racy and autocracy. It was so important that we should centre our 
attention upon it. We should give all the consideration we can to 
awaken ideals. 

You have that chance now. Zionism is going to do you some good. 
It is going to arouse you from your complacency. You must realize 
that it will turn you back a thousand years. Why surrender all you 
have gained during that time.^ Reformed Judaism must assert itself. 
If American democracy can annihilate autocracy and anarchy, we 
Jews cannot accept the foolish argument that you must have Zionism 
to keep the Jews as Jews. We must have something, but it is not 
Zionism. The Rabbis and people must spread Judaism in America 
and they must be militant. 

I believe that to-day there is a religious revival in the world. Why 
should our patriotism be doubted if at the same time we are to have 
a moral awakening? I have been delighted as I have travelled over 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 295 

this country in order to promote various causes, such as the Jewish 
Welfare Campaign, to find the Rabbis honoured in their communities, 
and that everywhere they held important positions. We can have a 
Jewish revival in this country, which is our Zion, and not Palestine. 

I have no objection to the founding of a Jewish university in 
Palestine. I think it is a fine thing. But when we realize the oppor- 
tunities that the men who sit at this table have had in this country, 
it seems a stupid and ridiculous notion not to admit that this is the 
Promised Land. Let us wake up and, as the Christians have done, 
be a militant religion. 

Everywhere I have been, people have told me that they were not 
for Zionism, but that they were afraid to assert themselves. All the 
Zionists want they have gotten. President Wilson has assured us that 
full civil and religious rights would be granted to the Jews every- 
where. It did not require Zionism to get that. They will get it as 
the result of the conduct of the Jews throughout the world. The 
League of Nations would be imperfect if it did not include it. 

You cannot make a good American out of anybody unless he is 
religious; and as we want a fine morality, we are looking to you 
ministers of the Jewish faith to give it to us. 

To the moral strength of our nation, American Judaism must con- 
tribute in the greater measure. In times of adversity and prosperity 
the moral and spiritual courage of the Jew has become proverbial. 
Now, in this new era for America and for the world, this strength and 
courage, the roots of which are imbedded in our religion, must be 
fostered and made a living force more than ever before. The Isaac 
M. Wise Centenary gives us the opportunity to establish the insti- 
tution of American Judaism on a firm foundation. This we must do, 
lest we fail to contribute in the fullest measure our share to the 
spiritual rebuilding of the world. 

Extended trips for the Near East and Jewish Rehef 
Committees, and also for the Liberty Loan and United 
War Work Drive, had taken me during these months into 
almost every part of the country, addressing gatherings 
in cities as far scattered as Lewiston, Me., Atlanta, Ga., 
and Portland, Ore. The itinerary included most places 
of any size in the Middle West and frequently demanded 
speeches for two or three of the causes the same day. 



296 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

The meetings were usually preceded by dinners or 
luncheons or followed by receptions, at which the leading 
men of the cities gathered. A more inspiring experience 
it would be hard to imagine than seeing every prejudice 
and hatred laid aside for labour in a common cause. 
Wherever my way led there were revealed, as national 
characteristics, an intense moral enthusiasm, warm-hearted 
response to human suffering, open-handed generosity, and 
mutual tolerance. 

Nevertheless, contact with voters in these drives had 
intensified my realization that a large number of our citi- 
zens were still Pacifists and that many of the German- 
Americans and their friends were protesting that the 
German Empire, innocent of having caused the world 
struggle, was fighting in self-defense. As I had positive 
information through Baron Wangenheim and the Mar- 
quis Pallavicini, my German and Austrian colleagues at 
Constantinople, that the war was premeditated, I con- 
sulted my friend, Frank I. Cobb, of the New York 
World, how best to make this fact public. The result 
was his collaboration and the appearance in that paper on 
October 14, 1917, of an article in which it was declared: 

This war was no accident. Neither did it come through the tem- 
porary break-down of European diplomacy. It was carefully planned 
and deliberately executed in cold blood. ... It was undertaken 
in the furtherance of a definite programme of Prussian imperialism. 

Proceeding to give my reasons for such a statement, as 
cause and effect had been revealed to me by Von Wangen- 
heim himself, the article included the first authoritative 
confirmation of the rumour that the Kaiser had indeed 
held the now famous Potsdam Conference, at which the 
German financiers, as early as the first week of July, 
1914, had been instructed to complete the concentration 
of the Empire's resources for war. The disclosure of 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 297 

these fcacts, copied in newspapers throughout the country, 
created a sensation and profoundly influenced American 
pubKc opinion. 

A number of friends urged me to write a book, giving 
my evidence more fully and revealing how Germany had 
dominated Turkish policy and forced the Sublime Porte 
into the war. Hesitancy as to the propriety of an Am- 
bassador using his information publicly led me to consult 
President Wilson. In doing so I expressed the opinion 
that the Congressional election of 1918 was in grave doubt 
and that everything should be done to prove that the Ex- 
ecutive had been right in entering the war. The following 
letter resolved my doubts and confirmed my inclination : 

The White House 

27 November, 1917. 
My dear Mr. Morgenthau: 

I have just received your letter of yesterday and in reply would 
say that I think you get impressions about public opinion in New 
York wliich by no means apply to the whole country, but nevertheless 
I think that your plan for a full exposition of some of the principal 
lines of German intrigue is an excellent one and I hope you will 
undertake to write and publish the book you speak of. 

I am writing in great haste, but not in hasty judgment you may 
be sure. 

Cordially and sincerely yours, 

Woodrow Wilson. 

I then wrote "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story." 
On September 30, 1917, I had contributed to the New 
York Times an article headed, "Emperor Wilham Must 
Go." Then followed the World interview already re- 
ferred to, and, on October 18th, less than a month before 
the Armistice, I delivered at Cooper Union an address 
in which I said; 

There is only one way to chasten Germany and that is to defeat her 
so completely that the memory will not pass out of her mind for 
many generations. Such a defeat is absolutely essential to her re- 



298 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

education along the lines of civilization and democracy. I will 
regard her utter defeat in a military sense, and the elimination of her 
war-lords, as the essential preliminaries to the new German demo- 
cratic state. These changes are necessary to re-establish that healthy 
and normal mentality which is the first requirement if she is to 
emerge from the present war a nation with which the rest of the 
world can consent to associate as a brother. 

On March 8, 1918, I had a meeting with Lord Read- 
ing, Lord Chief Justice of England, whom Lloyd George 
had sent as special Ambassador to this country. In our 
conversation, he revealed a fact of great historic interest. 

The day before, at a luncheon given him by the Mer- 
chants' Association of New York, Lord Reading had 
used what seemed a singular expression for an official 
representative of Great Britain. Referring to the grav- 
ity of the military situation and the necessity for America 
to exert her full strength, he described the tremendous 
sacrifices of his own people and then declared : 

"You must take up the burden. We have done all we 
can do." 

Recalling this in our talk, I suggested that it must have 
been a slip of the tongue, and asked: "Did you not mean 
to say, 'We (Great Britain) are doing all we can?' " 

"Quite the contrary," Lord Reading instantly replied. 
"I said it dehberately, and it is the fact. Every English- 
man that is fit for military service has been called to the 
colours ; we have even combed our civil service. We have 
no reserve man-power left." 

Nevertheless, public utterance of such a statement at 
such a time revealed a misconception of our national psy- 
chology. I pointed out to Lord Reading that we Ameri- 
cans were not yet far enough advanced in experience of 
war to react favourably to such a message. 

Nor were the women that we met in these war activities 
less interesting than the men. Mrs. Emma Bailey Speex, 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 299 

president of the Y. W. C. A., sent a car to take me over 
to Tenafly, N. J., to make the dedicatory address at a new 
hostess house. In the car was a lady wearing the Y. W. 
C. A. uniform. She said that Mrs. Speer, being unable 
to come herself, had sent her as a substitute — and it was 
splendid to see how this, the daughter of Senator Aldrich, 
and the wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., could be just a 
good private in the Y. W. C. A. ranks, taking her position 
and doing her duties with seriousness and efficiency. 

Soon after this, we gave a dinner in honour of Dr. 
Henry Pratt Judson, president of Chicago University, 
who had recently returned from Persia on behalf of the 
Near East Relief Committee. An amusing incident oc- 
curred which partly spoiled the evening for Mr. Schiff, 
the great financier and much beloved leader of the Jews, 
and recognized as one of the most eminent citizens of 
America. He sat next to Mrs. Rockefeller and acci- 
dentally caused the spilling of a cup of coffee over her 
dress. She tactfully said that the dress had been cleaned 
before and could be cleaned again. Nevertheless, it de- 
pressed JNIr. Schiff to think that he should have been so 
awkward as to raise his elbow while the coffee was being 
passed. A week later he showed me with great satisfac- 
tion a letter from Mrs. Rockefeller, accepting the beauti- 
ful lace scarf which he had sent her with the explanation 
that it was to cover the spot on her dress. The incident 
again proves that the biggest men devote the required 
time and thought to straightening out even such little mis- 
haps as that here related. 

The signing of the Armistice abruptly terminated hos- 
tilities a year earlier than most people had expected. 
Public opinion was far from clarified upon the question as 
to the kind of peace treaty which should be drawn up. 
The public did realize, however, that it was confronted 



300 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

with an issue perhaps even more vital than the issues of 
war. A peace must be devised to end this war and pre- 
vent a recurrence of so terrible a disaster. At this time, 
the only powerful and organized body of men which had 
studied this subject and had a solution to offer was the 
League to Enforce Peace. The leaders of this league 
felt that it was a public duty to place their solution before 
the nation, and give it the utmost publicity in the hope 
that it might be serviceable in directing the course of in- 
vestigations at Paris into channels of permanent benefit to 
humanity. 

They worked out an ingenious and effective plan. Not 
content with merely announcing their ideas through the 
press or on the platform, they organized nine "congress- 
es" in as many cities, each the centre of an important 
section. They arranged to have district delegates sent 
to the sessions of the congresses, and from five thou- 
sand to ten thousand delegates attended every one; be- 
sides, numerous audiences flocked to overflow meetings. 
A group of public men, headed by ex-President Taft, 
was organized to address the sessions, as representatives 
of the League. I was asked to be one of that group. 

Mr. Wilson was in Paris. Fearing that this campaign 
might in some way embarrass him, or conflict with his 
plans, I consulted several Cabinet members: Secretaries 
Lane and Houston applauded the wisdom of the proposed 
campaign. Secretary Baker wrote: 

December 21, 1918. 
My dear Mr. Morgenthau: 

I return herewith the letter which you enclosed with yours of the 
twentieth. 

I have not agreed to speak for the League to Enforce Peace, nor 
have I any idea of speaking under the auspices of that society*, not 
that I have any objection to it but simply that I doubt very much the 
wisdom of anybody connected with the Administration at this time 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 301 

associating himself with a society which has a particular mode of 
assuring future peace. So far as I am personally concerned, I am 
for any way the President can work out. I did say to Mr. Filene 
and some other gentlemen who called upon me as representatives of 
the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, that I would be very 
glad to attend a couple of dinners held under the auspices of the 
Chamber of Commerce, and incidentally would say something in 
favour of a league of nations, but with the distinct understanding that 
I was not speaking for the Administration and was not speaking for 
any plan or programme whatever. Since making this promise I have 
even more doubted the wisdom of doing it, for exactly the reasons you 
state in your letter. It seems to me entirely possible for us here, 
with the best of good intentions, deeply to embarrass the President 
in his very delicate task, and so far as I am concerned, I have no 
intention of doing it. Unless I change my mind, I will beg off from 
the engagements already made, and I am sure it would be better for 
all of us to refrain from that kind of discussion just now. 

Cordially yours, 
(Signed) Newton D. Baker, 

Secretary of War. 



I was assured that I was expected to speak only in the 
general terms of an association of nations without out- 
lining any detailed plan therefor. On receipt of this as- 
surance, I decided to go. 

The party comprised ex-President Taft, President 
Lowell of Harvard; Dr. Henry van Dyke of Princeton; 
Dr. Elmer R. Brown, Dean of the Yale Divinity School; 
George Grafton Wilson, Professor of International Law 
at Harvard; Edward A. Filene, of Boston; and Mrs. 
Philip North ^loore, of St. Louis, president of the Na- 
tional Council of Women. The three weeks, passed in a 
tour of the country with such able and delightful people, 
was thoroughly enjoyed. 

On this journey, my acquaintance with Mr. Taft was 
transformed into a genuine friendship. On the first day 
out, it was "Mr. INIorgenthau" ; on the second, "Henry 



302 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Morgenthau"; and on the third it became, and has since 
remained, "Henry." He was a most delightful travel- 
ling companion and fellow- worker, good-humoured under 
all circumstances, uncomplaining under the heaviest 
tasks, the soul of friendliness and consideration: "To 
know him was to love him." One day, as we were sitting 
in his compartment, discussing some details of the trip, he 
broke into one of his characteristic little chuckles : 

"Here you have been opposing me politically all these 
years," he said, "and now we're together on the same plat- 
form for the good of the whole world. Doesn't pubHc 
service make strange compartment companions?" 

Our trip was filled with hard work, exhausting hours, 
and not a few discomforts, but it brought us many mo- 
ments of inspiration and some of amusement. Of the 
latter, one stands clear in my memory. We were stand- 
ing unobserved at the railroad station of a small town in 
the Dakotas, when President Lowell thought we ought 
to do something "to get our blood in circulation" and 
challenged me to a foot race on the station platform. 

"I'll take a handicap — I'll run backwards." 

His challenge was accepted, and he won the race. Then 
he confessed that running backwards was one of his ac- 
complishments from undergraduate days. 

The outstanding moments of the trip were those which 
immediately followed our receipt of the first draft of the 
League Covenant. We were steaming through Utah, 
when it was handed aboard. At once it was given the 
stenographers for manifolding, and none of us is likely 
to forget the impatience with which each awaited his copy, 
the eagerness with which each took it to his own compart- 
ment for study. 

That evening President Lowell, Dr. Van Dyke, and my- 
self were called to Mr. Taft's compartment. He sat 
there, his face all aglow with satisfaction. He put his 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 303 

hand on his copy of the Covenant, which was lying on the 
table, and said: 

"I am delighted to find it has teeth in it." 
We had a long discussion, concluding that we ought to 
prepare a pronouncement for publication. Mr. Taft 
asked us three to draw up a statement. We complied and 
called in Professors Brown and Wilson, who were very 
useful in condensing it. Mr. Taft read the result, ap- 
proved of it, but added the concluding sentence: 

The alternative to a League of Nations is the heavy burden and 
the constant temptation of universal armament. 

That addition made, the signatures were affixed, and 
the train stopped at a little station to telegraph our state- 
ment to the Associated Press. The local telegrapher 
doubted his ability to transmit accurately a message that 
he considered so important as this one, but he notified the 
operator at the next town to be ready for us, and from 
there the statement was sent out in the following terms: 

AN APPEAL TO OUR FELLOW CITIZENS 

The war against military autocracy has been won because the great 
free nations acted together, and its results will be secured only if they 
continue to act together. The forces making for autocratic rule on 
the one hand, and for the violence of Bolshevism on the other are 
still at work. 

In fifty years the small states of Prussia so organized central 
Europe as to defy the world. In the present disorganized state of 
central and eastern Europe, that can be done again on a still larger 
scale and menace all free institutions. The death of millions of 
men and the destruction and debt in another world war would turn 
civilization backward for generations. In such a war we shall cer- 
tainly be involved, and our best young men will be sacrificed as the 
French and English have been sacrificed in the last four years. Such 
a catastrophe can be prevented only by the reconstruction of the 
small states now seeking self-government, on the basis of freedom 
and justice; but this is impossible without a league, for divided its 



304 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

members are not strong enough for the task. Should the victorious 
nations fail to form a league, German imperialists would have a 
clearer field for their designs. 

By the abundance of its natural resources, by the number, intelli- 
gence, and character of its people, the United States has become a 
world power. It cannot avoid the risks and must assume the re- 
sponsibilities of its position. It cannot stand aloof, but must face 
boldly the facts of the day, with confidence in itself and in its 
future among the great nations of the earth. 

United as never before, our people have fought this war. United 
and above party we must consider the problems of peace, resolved that 
so far as in us lies, war shall no more scourge mankind. The 
Covenant reported to the Paris Conference has come since the last 
election, and the people have had no chance to pass judgment upon 
it. In this journey from coast to coast we have looked into the faces 
of more than 100,000 typical Americans, and believe that the great 
majority of our countrymen desire to take part in such a league as 
is proposed in that document. We appeal to our fellow citizens, 
therefore, to study earnestly this question, and express their opinions 
with a voice so clear and strong that our representatives in Congress 
may know that the people of the United States are determined to 
assume their part in this crisis of human history. The alternative 
to a League of Nations is the heavy burden and the constant tempta- 
tion of universal armament. 
February 23, 1919. 
(Signed) 

William H. Taft. 

Henry Morgenthau. 

A. Lawrence Lowell. 

Henry Van Dyke. 



Mr. Taft's endorsement of the Covenant as then drawn 
moved me, at our journey's end, to telegraph to Wash- 
ington suggesting that he join President Wilson in an 
exposition of the League before a great mass meeting. 
The reply came back that such a plan was already being 
put into execution. It was carried out at the gathering 
on March 4, 1919, in the Metropohtan Opera House, New 
York, on the eve of Mr. Wilson's return to Paris. 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 305 

That night, when the Democratic President of the 
United States walked on the stage with the Repubhcan 
ex-President, the audience seemed ahnost justified in 
thinking that the Covenant had been Mf ted above partisan- 
ship and that the Magna Charta of the Nations was se- 
cure. 

This conviction was strengthened by Mr. Taft's ad- 
dress. He dehvered it without any apparent exertion. 
He had thoroughly mastered the general subject during 
his long connection with the League to Enforce Peace, he 
had secured the draft of the Covenant, locked himself up 
with it, analyzed and digested it. He had "tried out" the 
subject in conferences with specialists, and presented it 
before popular meetings across the Continent. Now, for 
one hour and a half, he discussed this historic document in 
all its national and international phases. His address, 
given with natural and admirable simplicity, the quin- 
tessence of deep thought, was complete, technical, erudite, 
judicial: the reading of a momentous interpretation by 
the future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. The speaker injected some of his native 
geniality into his delivery; but not for that reason alone 
did the vast audience listen ninety minutes without a sign 
of restlessness: the believers, the doubters, and the active 
opponents were spellbound by his logical and convincing 
argument. 

During all this time it was more than interesting to 
watch the fixed attention that the President was giving to 
the address. We all wondered what was going on in his 
battling brain. Some of us noticed for the first time a 
nervous twitching in his cheek, undoubtedly a reflex of 
the tremendous harassment that he had undergone in 
Washington. 

He had come back to America to sign some bills before 
the expiration of Congress on March 4th, and brought 



306 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

with him this Covenant. Now, before his departure for 
Europe, he hstened to the fine approval of his ideal by his 
predecessor, who, though prominent in his party and 
highly esteemed by all Americans, was not speaking with 
final authority: the Senate had to approve the Covenant 
before it could become binding on the United States. 

So Woodrow Wilson, whom the peoples of the world 
were ready to accept as their leader, had to return to Paris 
knowing that the thirty-seven Senators who had signed 
the "round robin" were pledged against him in terms 
which could have no other purpose than to notify our 
Associates at the Peace Conference that the Senate would 
not confirm any League of Nations projected by him. 
With this fear in his heart, he was on his way to resume 
his participation in the greatest diplomatic struggle of 
modern times. This evening, he saw again unmistaka- 
ble evidence that if the American people possessed the 
authority and could express it, they would undoubtedly 
grant him the necessary power, without restrictions or res- 
ervations, to enter into an agreement, which would help 
to lift the world out of the mire of militarism to a higher 
plane, where wars would disappear, where international 
peace and justice would prevail, and where the combined 
efforts of mankind, purified and energized by its moral 
elevation, would be diverted from its destructive pursuits 
and concentrated on the promotion of happiness. 

That evening I brought Homer Cummings home with 
me. We were both buoyed up, tingling from the enthu- 
siasm of that great meeting, yet fearing that this League 
of Nations might be shattered by partisan politics. 

As we settled down in my library, I said to Cummings : 

"Homer, you are really neglecting your duty as Na- 
tional Chairman unless you undertake immediately to 
present to the American people the attitude of the Demo- 
cratic Party toward this League of Nations, and denounce. 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 307 

in the unmeasured terms that it deserves this violent op- 
position that has developed against it." I told him that it 
required a real Philippic, and then related to him my own 
recent experience with Demosthenes, which occurred at a 
dinner given to some Greeks, when Dr. Talcott Williams 
told an anecdote of Hellenic influence on modern life. 

Williams said that some twenty-five years ago he had 
asked a Princeton college professor whether there was, 
in his opinion, any way of affecting current thought ex- 
cept through the pulpit or the press. The professor re- 
plied that there was the forum, and that, for his own 
part, he was fitting himself for the forum by a careful 
study of Demosthenes. Years passed, and Dr. Williams 
met the professor again and reminded him of his youthful 
conviction. 

"I haven't changed my opinion," said the Princetonian, 
"and only recently I had to brush up my Greek to enable 
me to refresh my recollection of some of the Philippics." 

The Princeton professor was Woodrow Wilson. 

When I told this story to my wife, who was both my 
kindest and severest critic, she immediately secured and 
placed on my desk, without any comment, a translation 
of Demosthenes. Inspired by its perusal, I dared to face 
a great audience in Buffalo and deliver an opening ad- 
dress for the Liberty Loans. 

I said to Cummings: "Now, as President Wilson 
is returning to Europe, you. Homer, ought to be the 
Demosthenes of the Democratic Party." 

Cummings took fire. "I believe I can do it," he cried. 

He was the man for it. Physically big, with a com- 
manding presence and a good dehvery, his experience as 
a member of the Democratic National Committee, his 
campaigns for Mayor of Stamford and Senator from 
Connecticut, and his successful service as state's attor- 
ney for Fairfield County in that state, had qualified him 



308 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

long since for brilliant public speaking, and latterly for 
public speaking of the denunciatory sort. 

We consulted Demosthenes. We analyzed the Fourth 
Philippic. 

Cummings's eyes flashed, as he exclaimed: 

"I can do it! I can do it!" 

The opening was to be a vindication of the Democratic 
Party throughout the war and the subsequent peace nego- 
tiations : the peroration, a denunciation of the opposition. 

The question remained: what forum should be selected? 
We canvassed the possibilities: the Economic Club, of 
which I was then president, and a number of others. One 
by one, all were dismissed. Finally, it was decided to 
give a small dinner at the National Democratic Club on 
the evening of March 14th, and to follow that immediately 
by a large reception, at which the speech in its first form 
was to be delivered. 

This plan was carried to a successful conclusion, and 
what Cummings said that night was the basis or skeleton 
of his soon-famous speech at San Francisco. "The rest 
is history." 

Meantime, my period at home was drawing to a close. 
I had written for the New York Times "A Vision of the 
Red Cross After the War." On March 7th, I received 
a cablegram from Henry P. Davison. It asked me to 
serve as delegate to the Conference at Cannes for the for- 
mation of the International League of Red Cross Soci- 
eties. Mr. Taft and Jacob Schiff both gave me advice 
that matched my incKnations. On ^larch 15th, the Times 
published an interview giving my point of view in regard 
to this trip : 

I am going to Europe to assist Henry P. Davison in his work 
of organizing the Red Cross for the great mission which I believe it 
is called upon to perform in the world. 

We have a very definite vision of what this work is to be. The 



A HECTIC FORTNIGHT 309 

League of Nations, when it is formed, will necessarily confine its ad- 
ministration to the more material aspects of government, such as 
boundaries, armament, and economic questions. There is need, there- 
fore, for a League to care for the human wants and moral aspirations 
of all peoples. This other "League of Nations" may well be the In- 
ternational Red Cross, which enlightened men and women are now 
engaged in forming. I am to assist in that work. It is a work dear 
to my heart, something for which for many years I have felt there is 
a definite need. 

The Red Cross, in the new and more splendid opportunity that 
has come to it, because of its services in the great war, is the medium, 
I believe, through which all true lovers of mankind may aid in making 
the world a better place to live in. 

I came home from the Democratic Club's reception to 
Ciimmings, snatched a few hours' sleep, and, on the fol- 
lowing morning, boarded the ship that was to take me on 
the journey which began with the International Red Cross 
Conference and ended in my investigation of the Jewish 
massacres in Poland. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS 

WE SAILED on the Leviathan, formerly the 
Vaterland. When we boarded the ship, we 
found the dock was elaborately decorated for the 
arrival of the Secretary of the Navy; the handsome royal 
suite was reserved for him and his wife. Josephus Dan- 
iels, no longer wearing his customary white suit, now dis- 
played an admiral's cap, and was surrounded by admirals 
and captains who were under his orders. He was the 
Secretary of the Navy and to the chagrin of some of our 
prominent ironmasters, he had assumed the exacting su- 
pervision of naval armour plate in lieu of his effective dis- 
tribution of newspaper boiler plate during the first Wilson 
campaign. 

Other fellow passengers were seven physicians bound, 
like myself, for the international conference of Red Cross 
Societies at Cannes: William H. Welch, of Johns Hop- 
kins, typifying to us all the wonderful accomplishments 
of the Rockefeller Institute; L. Emmett Holt, the medi- 
cal foster-father of thousands of American babies; Her- 
mann M. Biggs, who, in his official capacities, has lifted 
public hygiene into a recognized requirement of modern 
civihzation; Colonel Russell, Chief of the Division of In- 
fectious Diseases in the U. S. Surgeon-General's office; 
Edward R. Baldwin, head of the well-known Saranac 
Lake Sanatorium for Tuberculosis; Fritz B. Talbot, of 
Boston, famous as a speciaHst in children's diseases; and 
Samuel M. Hammill, head of the Pennsylvania Child- 
Welfare Board. With these was Mr. Chanler P. Ander- 
son, ex-solicitor of the State Department. 

310 



THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS 311 

We took our meals at the same table and used these 
often wasted hours to weave precious strands of friend- 
ship that can best be created amongst people animated by 
the same aims and sharing the obligations of service. At 
my suggestion, we decided to hold daily meetings to pre- 
pare for submission to the Conference a plan which would 
embody the combined thoughts of our entire party. Dr. 
Welch had intended to devote his time at sea to writing an 
article on his old associate. Dr. Osier, but rather regret- 
fully postponed his task and accepted his usual position — 
that of chairman. Dr. Holt was elected secretary so that, 
with Dr. Biggs as vice-chairman, we transferred to our 
gatherings the precision and expert management of the 
Rockefeller Institute. 

Dr. Welch's first thought has always been of public 
service. Before our country entered the war, he went to 
the President and suggested making ready our medical 
practitioners and hospitals for service. Mr. Wilson ap- 
pointed him to the Council of National Defense, and some 
day the public will be surprised to learn how much he did 
toward that phase of preparedness. On the Leviathan 
he brought out what was best in us and proved, at the age 
of sixty-eight, the fallacy of the popular interpretation of 
Dr. Osier's statement about the end of human usefulness 
at forty-five. 

All of the physicians were animated by this same high 
motive: not to commercialize their talents, but to devote 
much of them to research work for the benefit of man- 
kind. As all of them were recognized authorities in their 
respective fields, they stated their experience and knowl- 
edge in so convincing a manner that it was like reading 
the last word written on the subject. 

After a few days of strictly medical discussion, I ven- 
tured to read them my conception of the proper future 
of the Red Cross as published in the New York Times of 



312 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

March 15, 1919, arguing that this noble organization 
ought now to become mihtant and endeavour to reach with 
curative and preventive measures into the innermost re- 
cesses of both hemispheres, where diseases originate and 
dense ignorance prevails. We all agreed that we must 
remedy the intellectual deficiencies as well as the physical 
weaknesses of the backward peoples, and, therefore, pre- 
pared a memorandum, later presented to the Conference, 
recommending a broad international programme of this 
character. 

We landed at Brest, and hurried to Paris and imme- 
diately reported to Mr. Davison. There I met Mr. 
Hoover's secretary, who said that "The Chief" — a title 
given Hoover by all his admiring adherents — was anxious 
to see me. I found Hoover concerned as to whether our 
contemplated organization would conflict with his exclu- 
sive authority conferred by President Wilson to manage 
all the American relief activities everywhere. I promptly 
relieved his mind, assuring him that the League of the Red 
Cross Societies had no intention of distributing food or 
in any way interfering with the American Relief adminis- 
tration. 

Our first Red Cross meeting was held next day in Mr. 
Davison's office at the Regina and then we presented our 
programme, urging its adoption as necessary to retain the 
interest and cooperation of the millions of adult and jun- 
ior members of the American Red Cross. But, unfor- 
tunately, Mr. Davison relied largely on Colonel Strong, 
and his plans were adopted; they were conventional and 
confined to a limited field. 

A few days later, Mr. Davison gave a dinner at the 
little old-fashioned house on the Quai de la Tourelle. The 
recruits from America were meeting the scarred veterans 
just returned from the front-line trenches. Here were 
the men that had fought dismay in Italy, typhus in Ser- 



THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS 313 

via, who had worked wonders on the Bosphorus, and saved 
the babies of Roumania. We heard their modest reports 
through which their valour and their triumphs shone hke 
so many pillars of fire. America had done these things: 
all non-combatant Americans had faithfully worked to 
develop the organization which made them possible; we 
newcomers from America, burning with the volunteer 
spirit and ready with a programme to continue that useful- 
ness and extend it throughout all the world, were raised, 
as we listened, far above the material plane. 

War-time regulations were still in force: all lights 
should have been extinguished at 9 :30, and Frederic him- 
self popi^ed a worried head in at the door several times 
to tell Davison so. Therefore, when our host called on me 
for the closing speech, he said: 

"I regret that you will have only five minutes for it, too. 
The curfew has rung three times already." 

In concluding my speech, I said : 

"My friends, I have been entranced by the splendid 
spirit displayed this evening. I have shared with you the 
elation of the hour. 

"You field workers have inspired us by recounting the 
blessings that have been showered upon you by the thou- 
sands of grateful recipients of your services, while we 
have freshened your drooping enthusiasm and reinforced 
your ardour by transmitting from your millions of mem- 
bers at home their hopes and prayers that you will 'Carry 
On.' The determination of all the guests to transform 
these hopes into definite actions seems to have changed 
this table into an altar at which to pledge ourselves to as- 
sume this new task of further brothering those who are 
still crying for help." 

Next day, on the train for Cannes, when Davison called 
Chanler Anderson and myself into conference, I again 
stated that, as we had the moral, scientific, educational, 



314 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

and sociological experts of nearly all the world mobilized 
and ready for further work, it would be criminal negli- 
gence not to make use of such an unprecedented oppor- 
tunity. Davison agreed as to fundamentals, but was 
afraid that too big a programme would frighten away the 
representatives of other nations. We could have the 
larger goal in mind, he said, and hope ultimately to reach 
it, but we must commence with something concrete in the 
conventional way to secure the cooperation of the non- 
American delegates. 

Nothwithstanding this, the Cannes Conference was an 
inspiring experience. 

Here we were gathered from all parts of the world, ex- 
changing condolences for the terrible ravages suffered by 
the various nations, watching intently, and waiting with 
deep fear in our hearts the outcome of the developments 
in Paris, hoping and praying that some definite good 
would result from this war, bewildered at our inability to 
recognize any definite signs of a coming solution, con- 
scious that the old-fashioned diplomacy was eclipsing the 
modern thoughts and aims of the progressive, disinter- 
ested members at the Conference. We felt that perhaps 
true democracy could only exist, as it did at our Confer- 
ence, where every man was chosen on account of his indi- 
vidual merit, and not on account of birth, or political pull, 
or influence; and some of us thought that, perhaps, after 
all, the improvement of the world would have to be 
brought about by a non-political body of men, whose right 
to serve arose from their own qualifications, and whose 
tenure of service would not be influenced by constant 
changes in government. It dawned upon us that, per- 
haps, these millions of members of the Red Cross Societies 
all over the world, with the many more millions that would 
join them, could undertake to establish a permanent or- 
ganization that would put into practical execution all the 



THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS 315 

teachings of religion, science, education, medicine, hy- 
giene, and sociology. While those in Paris were rear- 
ranging the boundaries, we were trying to develop the 
universal spirit of service to all humanity which would 
recognize no boundaries, or class distinctions, or religious 
differences. 

Under the presidency of Dr. Emile Roux, the worthy 
successor of Pasteur, it became a Congress of Scientists. 
Leading members of the medical profession in the Asso- 
ciated Nations were there, and the same tone of unselfish 
interest on behalf of humanity that I had found among 
the American representatives prevailed. Rivalries, en- 
vies, personal ambitions were totally absent; there was 
none of the crossing and double-crossing, scheming and 
misrepresentation of a political convention. These fine 
intellects were making a genuine effort to create an agency 
through which all discoveries in medicine and hygiene 
could be utilized for the benefit of mankind without 
thoughts of royalties or patents. It was a revelation to a 
practical business man, and I sincerely wished that more 
business men could profit by such an experience with prac- 
tical idealists. 

In private talks some of the delegates from the differ- 
ent countries responded wonderfully to my suggested 
plan, but they had been stunned by the war and were be- 
wildered by the resultant chaos and depended on the 
United States to take the lead. Another thing discour- 
aged me: no representatives were present from the gen- 
eral educational, sociological, or philanthropic worlds, and 
the best of men must necessarily see fife through the 
glasses of their own profession. Consequently, I was not 
surprised, though I was disappointed, by the adoption of 
Colonel Strong's programme. 

It was what his remarks in Paris had indicated. Early 
activities were to be limited to those of an international 



316 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

health and statistical bureau. The Conference decided 
that the international societies should deal only with gen- 
eral hygienic improvement and child-welfare, and that 
even in these matters the central organization, instead of 
doing the actual work, should leave that to the constituent 
league members and confine itself to the development of 
policies and the collection of statistics. 

The question remained : who was to be the executive of 
this still potentially important force? 

Throughout the Conference Davison was recognized as 
its organizing and directing spirit. It was a delight to 
see him in action, to note his quick response to suggestions, 
his prompt absorption of committee reports, his analysis 
of technical addresses. Devoting the full measure of his 
great ability to the work, he was performing it admirably 
and enjoying the performance. Everything depended 
upon the choice of a director-general; yet here was the 
very man to maintain vitality in this organism : why should 
he not remain the leader ? 

The result was a heart-to-heart talk, in which I still 
clung to my "Vision of the Red Cross after the War." 

For two solid hours, with all the eloquence and per- 
suasiveness I could muster, I tried to induce Henry P. 
Davison to abandon his business career and devote the rest 
of his life to this cause. I argued that the great satisfac- 
tion he plainly felt through contact with scientists of one 
profession indicated the enjoyment he would experience 
in bringing together the leaders in education, sociology, 
and general philanthropy ; and that the ability which made 
him successful with the physicians would completely 
eclipse that success when he added to these the leaders in 
other fields. I told of a discussion I had had in Paris with 
John R. Mott, and how thoroughly he regretted that the 
Y. M. C. A. could not undertake this great work. 

*'No president of any republic," I said, "has ever had 



THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS 317 

such an opportunity as this. Here is a chance to lead an 
army that will eventually really improve the world. You 
have shown that you possess the requisite administrative 
ability and vision. By sterling qualities and hard work, 
you've reached the top of the business ladder. On it there 
is nothing above you comparable to what this new career 
holds. Until a few years ago you used your personal 
magnetism, and all the gifts so generously bestowed upon 
you, in finance. Now, you have been using them with 
phenomenal success in philanthropy. You must know 
that the former is ephemeral, while in the latter, the good 
to be done is lasting. While so many are exploiting the 
masses, you can lead in benefiting them. The thing that's 
needed to cure the ills of man isn't another compromise 
peace treaty. Practical, world-wide philanthropy is the 
thing that's needed, and the man who organizes that will 
be the acknowledged leader of modern humanitarianism." 

Davison was really deeply moved. He listened atten- 
tively, sympathetically ; he was under the spell of the ideal. 
But the chords that held him to materialism were too 
strong ; he was still enmeshed. 

"I'll do everything I can to help make a success of the 
larger Red Cross," he said, "but I can't devote my entire 
time to it." 

"That's not enough," I answered. "It will be impossi- 
ble for you to run an International League of Red Cross 
Societies the way you're running railroads and other en- 
terprises, from the corner of Broad and Wall streets." 

Then he put his arm around my shoulder and said, in 
effect : 

"I don't want to make any more money, but I owe a 
definite obligation to my firm and the corporations I'm 
connected with. I wish with my whole heart that I could 
go on with the Red Cross, but it's impossible, Morgenthau 
— impossible!" 



318 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

There being no appeal from his decision, we canvassed 
other names. The matter reduced itself to a choice be- 
tween Franklin K. Lane and General W. W. Atterbury, 
and, as the latter was in France, Davison had him come to 
Cannes and talk the proposition over, but found that the 
General considered it his duty to resume his position as 
vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad as soon as he 
was released from the army. We then turned toward 
Secretary Lane, and agreed that I should send the follow- 
ing telegram : 

Admiral Grayson, 
c/j President Wilson, 

Place des Etats-Unis, Paris. 

Kindly ascertain and notifj' by telephone Otis Cutler, Hotel 
Regina, Paris, whether President Wilson has any objection to Sec- 
retary Lane being approached to accept the General Directorship of 
the Associated National Red Cross. Davison and his advisers, after 
a thorough canvass of available material here, have unanimously con- 
cluded that Lane is best equipped for this most important post. As 
success of movement is so largely dependent on its management, we 
hope President will assent. 

(Signed) Henry Morgenthau. 

The reply was another evidence of Wilson's fine loy- 
alty to his friends : 

Hon. Henry Morgenthau, 
Cannes, France. 

The President does not know what the position proposed is, but 
he could not see his way to approving anything that would necessarily 
involve Secretary Lane's withdrawal from his position unless the 
desire originated with him. 

(Signed) Gary T. Grayson. 

Davison then cabled one of his partners to see Lane per- 
sonally and asked me to cable Lane direct, which was done 
as follows : 



THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS 319 

Franklin Lane, 

Washington, D. C. 

Welch, Biggs, Farrand, Holt, and myself, who have been consulted 
by Davison as to choice of Director General, all believe that you are 
the best man for the position and that the movement will give you 
an unhampered opportunity to utilize your wonderful experience. 
We all urge you to give it favourable consideration. Have read 
Davison's cable and it does not fully picture the unlimited scope of 
service afforded. It is second to no prior chance to help suffering 
humanity. 

(Signed) Morgenthau. 



If Davison would have taken the director-generalship, 
or if it could have been given to Lane or Atterbury, or 
someone else of their vision and ability, the organization 
might have become a very different affair from what it is 
to-day. But this was not to be. Accident intervened be- 
fore Lane would act, and the International League of i/ 
Red Cross Societies added another to the list of the world's 
lost chances. This is what happened : 

We had come back to Paris. The Executive Commit- 
tee was in session at the Hotel Regina. In an unguarded 
moment, Davison said: 

"If Great Britain can produce a man fitted for the ^ 
director-generalship, I shall consent to his appointment." 

Instantly, Sir Arthur Stanley jumped at the offer. He 
was president of the British Red Cross and the younger 
brother of the Earl of Derby, at that time British Ambas- 
sador to France. He has a lame foot, but his intellect is 
as agile as any man's. His bright eyes flashed like dia- 
monds. Trained fencer that he is, he saw the opening 
Davison had given him and took full advantage of it. 

"I'll investigate immediately!" said he. 
. I went over to Davison and in Stanley's hearing told 
him that this was a mistake; the Americans should name 
the Director-General, because we would have to assume 



320 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the burden of organization and had the resources to do so 
properly. 

"And the French and Italians will side with you," I 
added, "if it is a choice between England and us." 

Luncheon recess intervened. During it, I spoke to the 
Latin delegates, and they confirmed my opinion. They 
admitted that they had not reaHzed what the proposition 
meant, and that they certainly preferred to have an 
American. At the afternoon session they proposed, in 
this hope, that the selection of a Director-General be left 
entirely to Davison. 

He, however, said that he was committed to his propo- 
sition, though he hoped that Sir Arthur would not be able 
to find a man equipped for the post. Two days later, 
Davison informed me that Sir Arthur had proposed Gen- 
eral David Henderson, and that he (Davison) had had 
thorough inquiries made about Henderson and found that 
his record and standing were such that no objection could 
be raised. Henderson became Director-General. 

One last hopeful note was sounded. I had told Mr. 
Davison to command me if he thought I could do any- 
thing further, and I was pleasantly surprised when he 
came and asked me whether my offer included a dinner to 
the Governors of the League of the Red Cross Societies. 
He explained that he was making this request because a 
former diplomat could secure the greatly desired attend- 
ance of the diplomatic representatives now gathered at the 
Peace Conference. 

The result was one of those thoroughly cosmopolitan 
dinners which could have occurred only in that city and at 
that time. In addition to the Red Cross board, there 
were present representatives of the twenty-four different 
countries that had been invited to join our League. 
Speeches were made by Ian Malcolm, speaking for Sir 
Arthur Stanley and Great Britain; Count Kergolay, for 



THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS 321 

France ; Count Frascara, for Italy ; Professor Arata Nina 
Gawa, for Japan; Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary- 
General of the League of Nations; General Henderson, 
the newly chosen head of the Red Cross League; Count 
Wedel Jarlsberg, of Denmark, doyen of the Diplomatic 
Corps in Paris ; Dr. Welch, Mrs. William K. Draper, Mr. 
Davison, and Dr. William Rappard, acting as interpre- 
ter and also speaking on behalf of the International Red 
Cross at Geneva. I presided as toastmaster and, listen- 
ing to the sentiments of the various addresses, all pitched 
in the highest optimistic and philanthropic key, felt that 
here was a readiness to cooperate that, if properly directed 
into action, might yet launch the organization upon the 
seas of larger usefulness. 

This hope, however, was never realized. When we 
failed to retain Davison as the active leader, or to get 
somebody of equal ability for Director-General, I feared 
that the League of Red Cross Societies would become a 
soulless bureau; that it could not undertake any of the 
broader activities we had hoped for, and that this wonder- 
ful nucleus of millions of adult and junior humanitarians 
would never be transformed into that great army of world 
welfare-workers which some of us had dreamed about and 
that all mankind so sorely needs. Subsequent events have 
justified my fears. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE PEACE CONFERENCE 

IN PARIS we found an entirely different state of af- 
fairs from that at Cannes. I was drawn almost im- 
mediately into the maelstrom of the Peace Confer- 
ence : it was a rude awakening. Instead of men who were 
freely utilizing their individual attainments for the gen- 
eral good, this was a battle of conflicting interests, petty 
rivalries and schemes for national aggrandizement. Each 
group of all the world's ablest and craftiest statesmen and 
politicians was seeking advantages for its own political 
entity and resorting to every old, and many new, methods 
to gain its ends. 

The representatives of the various countries had come 
expecting to find an international court of justice, where 
a set of supermen would rearrange the earth, settle all dis- 
putes, terminate all grievances, and make a new world- 
map along fair ethnological and national lines. Yet no- 
body knew how this was to be done. The little nations 
looked to the big, but the big were too much concerned 
with their own affairs, and with the division of the spoils, 
to be able suddenly to convert themselves into impartial 
judges. Loyalty to their own countries overshadowed 
their interest in the general good. There was just so much 
benefit to be divided, and in the struggle of everyone to 
secure a larger share for himself, many failed to get any- 
thing, and almost nothing was left for the common good. 
Nearly all were scheming to weaken the arch-enemy, 
Germany, by despoiling her of territory and creating 
strong safeguards around her. The best comparison that 

322 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 323 

comes to my mind is that of a legal contest over the terms 
of a will disposing of a large estate. All the possible 
heirs were here in Paris: the legitimate, the illegitimate, 
and such posthmiious children as Czecho-Slovakia and 
Poland were crowding into court. Five trustees had, in- 
deed, been appointed to effect a just division — the repre- 
sentatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and 
the United States — but these, with the exception of Amer- 
ica, were themselves claimants, and the pleas were so con- 
flicting that no human genius, or group of them, could 
have rendered a decision to the satisfaction of all. Pres- 
ident Wilson realized this, and partly because of it pro- 
posed a League of Nations as a permanent court to 
settle what could not be settled at the Peace Conference. 

My observations were made from an advantageous 
position. The hopes and ambitions of the various powers 
were centred in President Wilson; their representatives 
were courting him and his friends, and as I had, at the 
request of the United States commissioners, joined 
William H. Buckler in studying the Turkish problem, 
my rooms at the hotel were soon transformed into a sort 
of office and general meeting-place for some of the most 
interesting figiu-es at the Conference. 

Kerenski was one of these. He was not apparently 
the consumptive figure pictured by the daily press ; on the 
contrary, he was a burly man with a thick neck and a 
mighty voice. When he pleaded his case, he waxed so 
eloquent, and his tones reached such a pitch, that I had to 
close the windows for fear outsiders might think there 
was a fight in my rooms. 

Although representing no established government and 
personifying the Russian regime that had overthrown 
Czarism, only to be itself supplanted by the Bolsheviki, 
Kerenski felt that the services of the real Russian people 
to the Allied cause entitled his party to a hearing at the 



324 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Peace Conference. Prophetically, he told me that the 
extremists did not represent the Russian people, and that 
they were forcing things too far ever to succeed. I re- 
member almost his exact words : 

"Russia is finished with the past, but is by no means 
ready to go to its antithesis. I myself represent the mid- 
dle course, and the world will some day realize that my 
government was evolutionary, not revolutionary." 

Kerenski was especially hurt by the fact that "even the 
Americans" would not Hsten to him. With fiery phrases, 
he explained convincingly that there could be no general 
peace until Russian affairs were adjusted, and that 
160,000,000 people who had so manfully contributed their 
full share against Prussianism could not justly, or even 
safely, be ignored. 

"I am not the spokesman of them all," he admitted; 
"but I do represent the political sentiment that must 
eventually prevail." 

Dr. Robert Lord was in charge of Russian affairs for 
the American delegation. I had him meet Kerenski the 
next day in my rooms, and from this meeting an invitation 
to the Crillon followed. 

A more pathetic picture was that presented by the 
Chinese delegation. They gave a dinner to a number of 
Americans, including Thomas Lamont, Edward A. Filene, 
Senator Holhs, Charles R. Crane, Professor Taussig, 
and myself. The affair may have been hopefully con- 
ceived, but, on that very day, Ray Stannard Baker came 
to them with President Wilson's message that he had to 
consent to the Japanese pretensions in Shantung. 

We had gone for a banquet; we remained for a wake. 
The Chinese delegates frankly feared that their failure to 
secure a proper adjustment with Japan might so exas- 
perate their people at home as to lead to personal harm to 
them. They felt that their treatment by the Conference 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 325 

would arouse their nation from its ancient lethargy and 
transform it into a military power that might eventually 
avenge its injured pride. One of them said to me: 

"We have a much firmer moral foundation than Japan, 
and we have a population of 400,000,000 as against its 
56,000,000. We possess as much latent power as the 
Japanese, and I dread to contemplate what may happen 
if it is ever aroused." 

To look into the eyes of those Chinamen as they talked 
to us and to observe their bearing under the trying circum- 
stances of that evening was to learn a lesson in restraint. 
The gravity of their situation was freely admitted, and 
yet they were perfect hosts to us Americans whose leader 
had just disappointed them. 

Even more pathetic than the Chinese discouragement 
was the hopeless case of the Persian delegates. Having 
come thousands of miles to present their plea for a new 
opportunity to achieve national regeneration, they were 
denied even a hearing by the peace commissioners. They 
pleaded for a release from the British-Russian yoke. 
They told us wonderful stories of their natural resources 
that could be developed promptly and with great profit if 
they could only be assured of security, or if they could 
feel secure from the interference by the larger nations, 
and assured of the cooperation of, instead of exploitation 
by, foreign capital. They alluded to iron and coal, 
copper, lead, and manganese. The stories they told re- 
minded one of the descriptions of Mexico and Peru before 
they were conquered by Cortez and Pizarro. Those cases 
involved all the risks of conquest in an unknown country, 
and the voyages thither were fraught with grave danger, 
while here was a nation whose resources were not in doubt, 
but could be examined at leisure, and by experts, and their 
existence proven; and the Persians who had been educated 
abroad and knew European conditions fairly implored 



326 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

us to bring within the reach of Persia the benefits of the 
progress made by these other countries during the last 
few hundred years, while Persia was allowed to remain 
untouched and unbenefited by those wonderful recent 
inventions that have enriched all the countries that utihzed 
them. Ali Kuli Khan, with his charming American wife, 
whom I had known previously, told me that, at a large 
dinner which the Persians had given, one of our American 
Peace Commissioners publicly promised them that the 
United States delegation would help them to a hearing; 
relying on this promise, Ali Kuh Khan had transmitted 
the news to his home government, only to have his hopes 
speedily dashed to pieces. 

Bratiano, the Roumanian premier, was anxious to 
secure American influence against a clause in the Rou- 
manian treaty recognizing the rights of minority peoples 
resident in his country. He invited my wife and me to 
dine with him and two royal princesses of his native land, 
Elizabeth and Marie, who have since respectively become 
the wives of the Crown Prince of Greece and the King 
of Serbia. When I told him that the United States 
was absolutely pledged to securing the equal rights for 
minorities everywhere, and that I heartily favoured this, 
he showed his disappointment and said that Roumania 
would never consent to it. He declared : 

"I would rather resign as premier than sign such a 

treaty." 

When the time came, he made good his word. 

In contrast to this unyielding ultra-conservative's point 
of view was the Due de Vendome's, the Bourbon, and as 
such, of the royal blood of France. He was married to 
the sister of the King of Belgium. It is rather an amus- 
ing story to tell how I became acquainted with him. 
While we were at Cannes in the midst of the conferences, 
one day, Colonel Strong interrupted me at lunch to in- 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 327 

troduce me to a Miss Curtis from Boston, who invited 
some of us to lunch with her in order to meet some of 
the residents of Cannes. We accepted and met, among 
others. Lady Waterlow, an American, whose husband had 
been Lord Mayor of London. This acquaintance resulted 
in her inviting us to a tea at her home, and I there met 
the Duchess of Vendome, and at that meeting she invited 
me to call on them in Paris, as her husband desired to 
make my acquaintance. 

I saw the Vendomes several times, and at a reception 
which they gave the guests were all bewildered as to when 
they had the right to sit down. They could not sit if any 
of the royalties were standing, and as five were at the 
reception, it was quite a task to watch until all were 
seated. The Duke saw my embarrassment and took me 
into a private room, which no other royalty was apt to 
invade, and we sat there and he opened his heart to me. 
He seemed convinced of the justice of the new order of 
things, and thought that royalty would soon be a lost 
profession. He was extremely anxious to be permitted 
to share in the work of the League of Nations, and asked 
me to arrange for him an opportunity to meet Colonel 
House, whom he, like many others in Paris at that time, 
thought would be the chief of the representatives of the 
United States in the League of Nations. The dinner 
was arranged, and it was somewhat amusing, and my 
democratic spirit smiled at the spectacle of a duke and 
brother-in-law of one of the few remaining kings in 
Europe acting like an American politician and wire-pull- 
ing for an opportunity to render pubhc service. 

Still more striking was the freer manner of Vesnitz, 
the gatherings at whose house were thoroughly cosmopoh- 
tan. He had been Serbian Minister in Paris, and now 
represented there the new Jugo-Slavia, which he had 
helped to create. Whereas Bratiano had represented only 



328 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

the aristocracy, Vesnitz represented all the Croats, Serbs, 
and Slovenes. He wanted this new nation to be self- 
supporting, with its own seaport and sufficient hinterland. 
He, too, was married to an American, and thought and 
talked like one. He spoke perfect English, was a man of 
much learning, and his country suffered a great loss when 
he died. 

Another outstanding Old-World democrat at the Peace 
Conference was Venizelos. The Greek Premier was 
anxious to impress us with the justice of his country's 
claims, and through Mr. Politis, his Foreign Minister, and 
Dr. Metaxa, whom I had known in New York, we met 
soon after my return to Paris. 

Born in the Isle of Crete, Venizelos had participated in 
the Revolution that freed his island from Turkey and 
made it a part of Greece. He started the Progressive 
movement in Greece, and became the leader of that group 
which prevented King Constantine from joining with 
Germany in the war. Later, despite the efforts of Queen 
Olga, the Kaiser's sister, this forceful lawyer brought 
Greece into the war on the side of the Allies. 

Because of his charm of manner, his assertiveness, and 
his persuasive powers, he accomplished wonders in Paris. 
The fact that he spoke English was a great help to him. 
It was a common saying that when Venizelos left Colonel 
House's room, the map-makers were sent for to re-draw 
the map. He asked for more than he expected, and got 
it nearly all. He possessed the suavity and diplomatic 
skill of a Benjamin Franklin and the constructive states- 
manship of an Alexander Hamilton. He had a firm grip 
of all the ramifications and complications of international 
affairs. Nations, no matter what their govermiient may 
be, are still ungrateful. Greece eventually preferred 
Constantine to Venizelos ! 

When discussing with Henry White the Greek invasion 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 329 

of Smyrna, I told him that the Greeks were making a 
mistake and that they would be drawn into a tedious 
struggle with the Turks. They would have to draw 
heavily on their resources and on their people's patience, 
which would be severely strained if, as I feared, the war 
lasted for years. White was deeply impressed. 

"I want vou to tell that to Venizelos," he said. 

He knew everybody, and his bringing people together 
was not the least of his services to our Commission. He 
invited the Greek Premier to his rooms in the Crillon, and 
there I repeated my opinion. 

I told him in great detail the changes that had taken 
place in Turkey since the beginning of the war, and de- 
scribed to him the characters of the men that were now in 
power. I also explained to him the great importance 
they put on retaining possession of the Port of Smyrna, 
now that they had lost most of their other ports on the 
jNIediterranean. I felt certain that they would draw the 
Grecian Army back into their hinterland, and away from 
their base of supplies, and then would continue to fight 
them by legitimate, or even guerrilla, methods, until they 
exhausted them. I reminded him how the Turks not only 
forl)ade their own people to employ Greeks, but even in- 
sisted that the American firms could not use Grecian 
workmen to collect the licorice root, or the Singer Manu- 
facturing Company continue to have Greeks in charge 
of their Turkish agencies. I also alluded to the difficul- 
ties of governing Smyrna from Athens, as Constantinople 
would divide their country, and the cost of administration 
would be beyond the present and prospective resources of 
Greece, and, finally, I reminded him that they would 
antagonize Italy and said: "You know better than I do 
what that means for Greece." 

Venizelos hstened patiently to my elaboration of this 
theme. 



330 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

"Perhaps we have acted too hastily," he said, "and if 
all you say is true, it may have been unwise for us to send 
an army into Smyrna, but now that the army is there, it 
would be more unwise to withdraw it — to do so would 
admit military, and court poHtical, defeat. The Mon- 
archists are plotting constantly against me in Athens, and 
they are backed by the merchants and shipping men who 
are over-ambitious and want new territory for their opera- 
tions." 

Venizelos admitted that he favoured the annexation of 
Thrace and of Smyrna proper. His explanation satis- 
fied me that it was pressure from Greek financiers that 
made him continue to enlarge his demands. 

My meeting with the subsequent premier of France 
came later. Stephen Lausanne, editor of that powerful 
journal, Le Matin, asked me to lunch with Bunau-Var- 
illa, the Matin's owner, a power in French politics. I was 
surprised to find present quite a number of people, among 
whom were the Belgian financier. Count Aupin, and the 
heavily moustached, stoop-shouldered man that headed the 
French delegation to the Washington Disarmament Con- 
ference. We discussed the future attitude of the United 
States toward France, and, when the party was breaking 
up, Lausanne detained me. 

"Don't go," he said: "Briand wants to talk with you." 

Aristide Briand, who had five times been Prime Minister 
of France, was then, as always, at the head of a strong 
pohtical faction. Once the friend, he had now long been 
the rival of Clemenceau, could almost at any moment have 
overthrown the Clemenceau Cabinet, and was puzzHng 
many people by his delay in executing such a manoeuvre. 
What he wanted of me was information concerning a 
matter that directly affected this situation. 

France's financial troubles were the stumbhng block: 
The country's tax-payers were already overburdened, yet 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 331 

a larger revenue must be raised. Briand and his friends 
felt that the man who, as Premier, attempted to set those 
troubles right, and who failed in the difficult endeavour, 
would not remain Premier for long. They considered leav- 
ing the ungrateful job to Clemenceau, unless they could 
put through the Chamber of Deputies their brilliant idea. 
They wanted to pay off the French war debt by means 
of a lottery loan. There would be daily prizes. They 
contemplated one as high as a milHon francs. And they 
expected to sell a large proportion of the tickets in 
America ! 

What, they asked, did I think of the plan? 
"Gentlemen," I said, "you are evidently unaware that 
there is a law against lotteries in the United States." 

"But this lottery," said Briand, "would be in France; we 
would merely sell tickets in America through the mails." 
"It was precisely by forbidding the use of the mails for 
such purposes," I explained, "that we stopped lotteries. 
It is a criminal offence to sell lottery-tickets in the United 
States or to use our mails for that purpose." 

I shall never forget the expression of disappointment 
with which Briand and Count Aupin greeted this an- 
nouncement. It meant that their scheme must be aban- 
doned and that Briand must still longer postpone the 
overthrow of Clemenceau. 

Much of what was passing behind the scenes at the 
Conference it would not be proper for me to tell. Part 
of that is the story of "The Passing of the Third-Floor 
Front," when the meetings of the American Commis- 
sioners were transferred from Colonel House's room on 
the third floor of the Crillon to Secretary Lansing's rooms 
on the first floor. But there is an anecdote that I do 
venture to repeat because it throws a light on the char- 
acter and careful methods of Lloyd George. 

Even the British Premier was keen to gain favour with 



332 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

those close to President Wilson, and one night he invited 
to dine with him Admiral Gary T. Grayson, whom he 
knew to be not only Mr. Wilson's physician, but one of 
his personal confidants as well. Now, Grayson was a 
Southerner of the Southerners ; he was born in Virginia's 
Culpepper County, and studied at William and Mary 
College. Consequently, he pricked up his ears when 
Lloyd George's entire table conversation confined itself 
to that America which lies south of INIason-and-Dixon's 
line. The Premier showed himself specially famihar 
with the career of Stonewall Jackson, for whom he pro- 
fessed a warm admiration. Finally, the dinner ended, 
Mr. Lloyd George's niece went to the piano, and sang — 
American Southern melodies! 

This was too much for Grayson. 

"How is it," he said, "that you all have such an intimate 
knowledge of my part of America?" 

Perhaps this direct query took the Premier by surprise. 
Anyhow, he confessed: 

"Well, you see I have just finished reading Hender- 
son's 'Life of Stonewall Jackson.' " 

Grayson's response was in the good old American 
fashion : 

"My dear sir, no matter what office you run for, you'll 
have my vote!" 

There was one interlude to my activities in Paris that 
should be mentioned if only for the sake of the stir it 
created back home. This was my speech at Coblenz, 
when I told the American soldiers there that another war 
impended. 

It was in May of 1919 that we took a trip to the oc- 
cupied territory and visited Coblenz, Cologne, and Wies- 
baden. I remember that we were at first much impressed 
by the unbending dignity of the young captain who was 
our escort until, one day, we stopped at Treves for lunch. 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 333 

We had just seated ourselves when a woman's voice called 
out: 

"Why, hello Pinky!" 

We all turned round, but the Captain jumped. He 
had red hair, and the woman who greeted him by the nick- 
name that his hair had won him before he achieved his 
military dignity was Peggy Shaw, of New York, who 
soon showed us her soldiers' theatre and rest-room in a 
barn where she served lemonade out of buckets to the 
Army of Occupation. Thenceforward, the Captain was 
"Pinky" to us all. 

At Coblenz we were billeted at the house of Von Grotte, 
the German president of the Rhineland provinces, and 
when I woke that first morning I could not help thinking 
of the changes that had taken place in my life between 
my birth at Mannlieim in 1856 and this day at Coblenz 
in 1919. Soon I was seated in the Coblenzer-Hof par- 
taking of a good American breakfast of oatmeal, eggs, 
bacon, wheat-cakes and molasses, and no doubt a better 
meal than any German Iiad that day, and looking at "Old 
Glory" afloat over Ehrenbreitstein. How full historic- 
allv the interim had been ! How strange to see the Amer- 
ican flaff above this fortress on the Rhine, while, below, 
a bronze statue of William I looked on in woeful con- 
templation of the ^vi-eckage to his Empire that his grand- 
son had wrought. 

Anxious to learn the true state of mind of the German 
people, I asked an American ^lilitary Intelhgence officer 
to arrange for me to talk with some of the leading citizens 
of Coblenz. He did so at the home of the best known 
lawyer of the city, where, besides our host, were a promi- 
nent doctor, the largest local paper manufacturer, an ex- 
port merchant, and several others. 

It took a couple of bottles of Rhine wine to loosen their 
tongues. Finally, one said: 



334 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

"Here we are in the afternoon of life, each of us a leader 
in his calling. We all had accumulated a competency 
when the war came but some 20 per cent, of this has 
been taken in taxes, and the remainder is to-day worth 
scarcely one fifth of its original value. [A mark was 
then worth about five cents.] We have scarcely one sixth 
of what we formerly possessed in actual wealth. Instead 
of yielding us a sufficient annual income on which to live, 
our principal now amounts to only three years' normal 
income." 

They all said that their business prospects were at an 
end. 

"But surely your profession goes right on," I protested 
to the physician. 

"I am as badly off as the others," he answered, "three 
of these men are my best and oldest patients: how can I 
charge them any more than I did before the war? More- 
over, many of my patients I can't charge anything at all." 

As one of the company expressed it, they felt that 
France wanted to turn them into galley-slaves: "She has 
put us into the hold of a ship; the hatches are battened 
down, and on them are sitting a lot of politicians from 
Paris to make sure that we never get out." 

The manufacturers said that the young men of ability 
and energy would not submit to "such slavery." They 
would seek other fields of activity, and eventually drift to 
a country like Russia, where skilled managers and intel- 
ligence were at a premium. 

All the Coblenzers present maintained the belief that 
the war had been forced upon their country by the French 
and the Russians combining to crush them. I could not 
convince them that their own war-lords had brought about 
the catastrophe, and that the German people, including 
even their socialists, were responsible because their repre- 
sentatives in Parliament voted for the war-credits. They 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 335 

had been told that this was a war of self-defense, and they 
believed it. Now that the autocrats and junkers had been 
overthrown, they thought that the people should not be 
held responsible for the mistakes of the militarists. They 
felt that Germany should be jDcrmitted to enter the family 
of nations and given a chance to recover and pay her debts. 

A few days later, I gave a talk to the American soldiers 
in the Liberty Hut at Coblenz, to which reference has 
been made. 

"At present," I said, "we are enjoying only a suspension 
of hostilities. Please don't go home and tell the people 
that this war is over. We have got to prepare for a 
greater conflict, a greater sacrifice, a greater responsibility. 
The young men of America will again have to fight. The 
manifold and conflicting demands of all nations at the 
Peace Conference are impossible of fulfillment. Many 
delegates to the Conference will leave Paris with their de- 
mands unsatisfied. The nations are going to have further 
quarrels and disputes. I believe that within fifteen years 
America will be called upon really to save the world." 

"The battle between democracy and anarchy," I argued, 
"will continue and will result in the bankruptcy of the 
participating nations. It is necessary for the United 
States to prepare, so that when a crisis comes, we shall be 
able to create a cooperative spirit between our capital and 
labour, and thus be so united and so strong that we can 
save civilization from annihilation." 

Cabled home, these words attracted some attention, yet 
the views that they expressed were not based entirely 
upon my own observations. I had talked with General 
Bliss, the military member of our Peace Commission, and 
with other American officers of high rank: they held opin- 
ions similar to mine. 

Bliss, on several occasions, told me that he thought we 
had just ended the first seven years of another Thirty 



336 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Years' War which had begun with the Balkan conflict of 
1912. 

Was he right? The answer rests hidden in the years 
immediately ahead of us. 

Whatever that answer may be, I saw the signing of 
the Peace Treaty intended to end the latest war. Gen- 
eral Pershing and I sat next to each other, and I dis- 
cussed these very matters with him at Versailles on that 
momentous 28th of June. The affixing of the signatures 
was not an impressive spectacle. There was no enthus- 
iasm, and but little excitement. People moved about and 
chatted in subdued voices. Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Lansing, 
and Colonel House sat in the row next to me, and I talked 
to Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Presidents Poincare 
and Wilson. The only solemn moment was that when 
the Germans walked to the table; they betrayed mental 
suffering, and one of them showed the results of physical 
hardship: his clothes hung on him so loosely that it was 
apparent he must have lost quite forty pounds since they 
were made. After the signatures had been affixed, we 
all walked up to the Treaty and looked at it, like mourners 
taking farewell of a corpse — but we were mourners with- 
out tears. 

That night the negotiations for the appointment of the 
memorable Harbord Commission to Armenia were con- 
cluded. In these I had played a considerable part; their 
termination marked the end of my semi-official activities 
before embarking on my Polish expedition. 

Passing mention has been made of the arduous study 
of the Turkish question, which our Commissioners had 
asked me to undertake jointly with W. H. Buckler. This 
task brought me again into contact with Mr. Hoover, be- 
cause of the relief work of his Commission in Armenia, 
and, besides renewing my pleasant relations with Sir 
Louis Mallet, who had been the British Ambassador to 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 337 

Constantinople while I was there, it involved, among a 
mass of other details, many interviews with the Armenian 
and French representatives and the spokesmen of the 
other interested parties. The French were determined 
to have Cihcia; the Armenians would not consider my 
advice that they should surrender it, and, by this conces- 
sion, win French support for their other ambitions. 
Buckler, Professor Philip M. Brown, and I made a re- 
port^ to President Wilson, recommending a triple man- 
date : one to cover Armenia, another Anatolia, and a third 
the Constantinople district, where the chief administrator 
would reside, with an administrator in each of the other 
territories; we expressed the opinion that there should be 
an Armenian parliament in Armenia and a Turkish parlia- 
ment in Anatolia, with the probable Turkish capital at 
Konia. Thus we would banish the Turk from Europe 
and hmit him to Anatolia, where, however, he would be 
permitted to govern himself. The triple mandate, we rec- 
ommended, should be assumed by the United States. 

Our report was submitted in the latter part of June. 
Nevertheless, the conflicting claims of the French and the 
Armenians and the woeful conditions of the districts in- 
volved, left something more to be done. I favoured the 
appointment of an American Army officer to go to Ar- 
menia as Commissioner for the Allied and Associated 
Nations, and to protect the Armenians. I had a high 
regard for the ability of Major-General Harbord, Gen- 
eral Pershing's Chief-of-Staff, and thought him exactly 
the man for such a post; but I was told that he was not in 
Paris, and nobody seemed to know just where he was or 
when he would return. 

At the last moment, fate played into my hands. On 
Tuesday, June 24th, I went to a dinner given by Homer 
H. Johnson to Assistant Secretary of War Benjamin 



1 See Appendix No. 3, which contains this report. 



338 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Crowell, and found General Harbord there. To my great 
satisfaction I was seated next to him. This gave us 
several hours to discuss the Armenian question, and I 
urged him to undertake the task. Next morning he sent 
me a remarkable letter, which showed his masterly grasp 
of the situation, but ended with the statement that he 
would not care to accept the Commissionership unless he 
could have a proper military staff to aid him. 

On Thursday, I had an appointment with the President 
to discuss the Polish Mission. We disposed of this very 
quickly, as I shall tell later on. I then seized upon the 
remaining minutes allotted me to present to the Presi- 
dent our proposal of a Commission to Armenia. The 
President was profoundly interested and told me that he 
had but little time left to do anything in the matter, as the 
Peace Treaty was to be signed on Saturday. And he 
added : 

"As you probably know, I shall sail for home that even- 
ing, but if you can come to an agreement with Hoover 
and let me have what you two recommend by nine o'clock 
to-morrow morning, I will try to put it through." 

I went straight to Hoover's office from my interview 
and we drafted a letter to the President containing the 
following joint recommendations to be brought by him to 
the attention of the Big Four before his departure : 

1. We suggest that a single temporary resident Commissioner 
should be appointed to Armenia, who will have the full authority of 
the United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy in all their re- 
lations to the de facto Armenian Government, as the joint representa- 
tive of these Governments in Armenia. His duties shall be so far as 
he may consider necessary to supervise and advise upon various 
governmental matters in the whole of Russian and Turkish Armenia, 
and to control relief and repatriation questions pending the determi- 
nation of the political destiny of this area. 

2. In case the various Governments should agree to this plan, 
immediate notification should be made to the de facto Governments 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 339 

of Turkey and of Armenia of his appointment and authority. Further- 
more, he will be appointed to represent the American Relief Admin- 
istration and the American Committee for Relief in the Near East 
and take entire charge of all their activities in Russian and Turkish 
Armenia. 

The ideal man for this position would be General Harbord, as we 
assume under all the circumstances it would probably be desirable to 
appoint an American. Should General Harbord be unable to under- 
take the matter, we are wondering whether you would leave it to us to 
select the man in conjunction with General Pershing. 



Two days later, the President sailed for America. As 
he was taking the Brest train from Paris, he turned to 
Harbord, who had come to the station: 

"We have passed that matter about you," he said. 

What matter he referred to, Harbord could not guess. 
There was no time to inquire of Mr. Wilson, and the 
General being wholly in the dark, did not think of inquir- 
ing of me. For some days, I was to remain in ignorance. 

On June 30th, though it was dated "June 28th," there 
arrived at the American Peace Commission's head- 
quarters a cable addressed to ^Ir. Wilson — now at sea — 
which, in the light of future events, bore signatures that 
appear rather startling in such a connection. How differ- 
ently people act when seeking power than they do when 
in authority! The message called "immediate" relief for 
Armenia "a sacred duty" and urged upon Woodrow 
Wilson : 



Tliat as a first step in that direction, and without waiting for the 
conclusion of peace, either the Allies, or America, or both, should at 
once send to Caucasus-Armenia requisite food, munitions and supplies 
for fifty thousand men and such other help as they may require to 
enable the Armenians to occupy the now-occupied parts of Armenia 
within the boundaries defined in the memorandum of the delegation 
of integral Armenia. 



340 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

The first three signatures were those of Charles Evans 
Hughes, Ehhu Root, and Henry Cabot Lodge! The 
next was John Sharp Wilhams. How strange it would 
be if Oscar Underwood had been asked and had signed in 
his place. We would then have had all four American 
delegates to the Disarmament Conference. 

Mr. Hoover called on me with a copy of this message in 
his hands. He said that Lansing, House, and White 
wanted us to draft a reply to it. 

In the composition of that reply, Hoover's opinions as 
to details again diverged from mine. He continued in 
his antagonism to an American Regular Army officer 
on the active list, as an administrator of Caucasus relief- 
work and evinced firm opposition to America taking a 
mandate. He argued good-temperedly, but strongly, to 
win me to his point of view; I was not convinced, and we 
at last reached another compromise, settling on such state- 
ments as we could both subscribe to. The reply was 
dated July 2nd, and was in part : 

Active relief work on a large scale is now in progress in the most 
distressed areas of Armenia, but will require much enlarged support, 
in view of the expiration of Congressional appropriations. . . . 
Competent observers report that immediate training and equipment 
of adequate Armenian forces would be impracticable and that the 
repatriation of refugees is feasible only under protection of British 
or American troops. British authorities inform us that they cannot 
spare troops for this purpose. . . . All military advisers agree 
that the Armenian population itself, even if furnished arms and sup- 
plies, will be unable to overcome Turkish opposition and surrounding 
pressure. ... To secure . . . establishment and protection 
and undertake the economic development of the state, such man- 
datory must, until it becomes self-supporting, provide not less than 
$300,000,000. It would have to be looked upon as a sheer effort to 
ease humanity. 

At about this point, Hoover's opposition to America 
assuming a mandate manifests itself in the message. We 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 341 

agreed that he should add a few lines, expressly and ex- 
plicitly on his own responsibility. So the message, after 
the joint signature of "Hoover-Morgenthau," continued: 

Mr. Hoover wishes to add on his sole responsibility that he con- 
siders that the only practicable method by which a government in 
this region could be made economically self-supporting would be to 
embrace in the same mandatory the area of Mesopotamia where there 
are very large possibilities of economic development, where there 
would be an outlet for the commercial abilities of the Armenians, and 
with such an enlarged area it could be hoped in a few years to build 
up a State self-supporting, although the intervention of some dominant 
foreign race must be continued until the entire population could be 
educated to a different basis of moral relations, and that consequently 
whatever State is assigned the mandatory for Mesopotamia should at 
the same time take up the burden of Armenia. 

When that portion of the message was suggested, I 
said to Mr. Hoover: 

"The inclusion of Mesopotamia in the proposition would 
absolutely destroy all chances of America taking the 
mandate." 

"Well," said Hoover, "I wouldn't object if that was 
the effect of it." 

The "effect" has now long since passed into history. 

Mandate or no mandate, the matter of a commission 
to Armenia suffered no retarding except in the detail of 
personnel. I was still in the dark about what President 
Wilson had done regarding it, but an odd chance soon 
enlightened me. 

It was after one o'clock when I rushed from Hoover's 
office to 23 Rue Minot to attend a luncheon given by the 
Hon. Arthur J. Balfour. At the table were Lord 
d'Abernon who, as Sir Edgar Vincent, had been manager 
of the Imperial Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, and 
now is British Ambassador in Berlin; Sir Maurice 



342 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Hankey and his wife; and Mr. Balfour's niece. We at 
once plunged into a discussion of Turkish affairs. Mr. 
Balfour said he favoured the United States taking a man- 
date over the Constantinople district and Armenia, but 
not over Anatolia. A general discussion of the economic 
difficuldes followed, and I outlined the plan of a triple 
mandate that I had submitted to the President, and went 
so far as to hope that it might lead to a Balkan federation. 
Then, to our great surprise, Sir Maurice turned to Mr. 
Balfour : 

"Why, Mr. Balfour," he said, "don't you know that the 
Hoover-Morgenthau plan for a resident commission in 
the Caucasus was acted upon by the Big Four on Satur- 
day at Versailles just after the signing of the Peace 
Treaty? They passed it in principle and referred it to 
you to work out the details. It is on your desk now on 
top of that pile of papers with a red slip on it." 

We now beheld Balfour in one of his well-known atti- 
tudes, when he slightly raises his eyebrows, drops his right 
shoulder, and looks at you with a smile that almost talks. 
He then said to me: "You see how Lloyd George does 
things. This information that Hankey has given us is 
absolutely as new to me as it is to you." 

Sir Maurice offered to stay over and help Balfour ar- 
range the details. The latter said that it would not be 
necessary, but asked me to request Mr. Lansing to do 
his part toward putting the affair into shape. 

Harbord was still unwilling to go without the assistance 
of a military staff, for which he had originally stipulated. 
President Wilson had left word that in such an event. 
Hoover and I were to name a substitute. Hoover sug- 
gested Colonel William N. Haskell, who had represented 
the American Relief Commission in Roumania; and as 
Haskell was to also represent the Near East Relief, of 
which I was then vice-chairman, I assented to his selection 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 343 

in both capacities, and Haskell set out for Armenia 
shortly thereafter. 

That appointment, I felt, would help to take care of 
the relief phase of the situation, but there was left the 
need of a report of a strictly army man on the military 
side of the Armenian matter before the question of Amer- 
ica assuming the proposed mandate could be thoroughly 
answered. Harbord was, therefore, doubly welcome when, 
within a few days, he came to me with a suggestion: 

"Don't you think," he asked, "it would be advisable 
that either Pershing or myself, or both, be sent to 
investigate and report on the conditions in the Trans- 
Caucasus, because the question of an American manda- 
tory in Turkey promises almost immediately to become 
urgent, and we should know military conditions there 
before the Government acts in the matter." 

As this completely coincided with my views, I immed- 
iately consulted Hoover, and we jointly sent a wireless to 
President Wilson, which elicited a prompt approval of 
the idea, and the order that it be left to Pershing to decide 
who should make the trip. 

The Harbord Mission and its very able report on Ar- 
menia resulted. Complete impartiality, and a total lack 
of prejudice, were shown by the manner in which he ended 
his report. He stated thirteen reasons for the United 
States adopting a mandate and thirteen reasons against 
it, and they were placed in parallel columns, so that every- 
one who read them could come to his own conclusions, and 
with General Harbord's permission I am including them 
here. 

Reasons For Reasons Against 

1. As one of the chief contrib- 1. The United States has prior 

Utors to the formation of the and nearer foreign obligations, 
League of Nations, the United and ample responsibilities with 



844 



ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 



Reasons For 

States is morally bound to accept 
the obligations and responsibil- 
ities of a mandatory power. 

2. The insurance of world 
peace at the world's cross-ways, 
the focus of war infection since 
the beginning of history. 



3. The Near East presents the 
greatest humanitarian opportun- 
ity of the age — a duty for which 
the United States is better fitted 
than any other — as witness Cuba, 
Porto Rico, Philippines, Hawaii, 
Panama, and our altruistic policy 
of developing peoples rather than 
material resources alone. 

4. America is practically the 
unanimous choice and fervent 
hope of all the peoples involved. 



Reasons Against 

domestic problems growing out 
of the war. 



2. This region has been a bat- 
tle ground of militarism and im- 
perialism for centuries. There 
is every likelihood that ambitious 
nations will still maneuver for 
its control. It would weaken our 
position relative to the Monroe 
Doctrine and probably eventually 
involve us with a reconstituted 
Russia. The taking of a man- 
date in this region would bring 
the United States into politics of 
the Old World, contrary to our 
traditional policy of keeping free 
of affairs in the Eastern Hemis- 
phere. 

3. Humanitarianism should be- 
gin at home. There is a sufficient 
number of difficult situations 
which call for our action within 
the well-recognized spheres of 
American influence. 



5. America is already spend- 
ing millions to save starving peo- 
ples in Turkey and Transcau- 
casia and could do this with much 



4. The United States has in no 
way contributed to and is not re- 
sponsible for the conditions, polit- 
ical, social, or economic, that 
prevail in this region. It will be 
entirely consistent to decline the 
invitation. 

5. American philanthropy and 
charity are world wide. Such 
policy would commit us to a pol- 
icy of meddling or draw upon 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 



345 



Reasons For 

more efficiency if in control. 
Whoever becomes mandatory for 
these regions we shall be still ex- 
pected to finance their relief, and 
will probably eventually furnish 
the capital for material develop- 
ment. 

6. America is the only hope of 
the Armenians. They consider 
but one other nation. Great 
Britain, which they fear would 
sacrifice their interests to Moslem 
public opinion as long as she con- 
trols hundreds of millions of that 
faith. Others fear Britain's im- 
perialistic policy and her habit 
of staying where she hoists her 

flag. 

For a mandatory America is 
not only the first choice of all the 
peoples of the Near East, but of 
each of the great powers, after 
itself. 

American power is adequate; 
its record clean ; its motives above 
suspicion. 

7. The mandatory would be 
self-supporting after an initial 
period of not to exceed five years. 
The building of railroads would 
offer opportunities to our capital. 
There would be great trade ad- 
vantages not only in the manda- 
tory region, but in the proximity 
to Russia, Roumania, etc. 

America would clean this hot- 
bed of disease and filth as she 
has in Cuba and Panama. 



Reasons Against 



our philanthropy to the point of 
exhaustion. 



6. Other powers, particularly 
Great Britain and Russia, have 
shown continued interest in the 
welfare of Armenia. Great Bri- 
tain is fitted by experience and 
government, has great resources 
in money and trained personnel, 
and though she might not be as 
sympathetic to Armenian aspira- 
tions, her rule would guarantee 
security and justice. 

The United States is not cap- 
able of sustaining a continuity of 
foreign policy. One Congress 
can not bind another. Even 
treaties can be nullified by cut- 
ting off appropriations. Non- 
partisanship is difficult to attain 
in our Government. 

7. Our country would be put to 
great expense, involving probably 
an increase of the Army and 
Navy. Large numbers of Amer- 
icans would serve in a country of 
loathsome and dangerous dis- 
eases. It is questionable if rail- 
roads could for many years pay 
interest on investments in their 
very difficult construction. Cap- 
ital for railways would not go 
there except on Government 
guaranty. 



346 



ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 



Reasons For 



8. Intervention would be a lib- 
eral education for our people in 
world politics; give outlet to a 
vast amount of spirit and energy 
and would furnish a shining ex- 
ample. 



9. It would definitely stop fur- 
ther massacres of Armenians and 
other Christians, give justice to 
the Turks, Kurds, Greeks and 
other peoples. 

10. It would increase the 
strength and prestige of the 
United States abroad and inspire 
interest at home in the regenera- 
tion of the Near East. 



Reasons Against 

The effort and money spent 
would get us more trade in nearer 
lands than we could hope for in 
Russia and Roumania. 

Proximity and competition 
would increase the possibility of 
our becoming involved in conflict 
with the policies and ambitions 
of states which now our friends 
would be made our rivals. 

8. Our spirit and energy can 
find scope in domestic enterprises, 
or in lands south and west of 
ours. Intervention in the Near 
East would rob us of the strategic 
advantage enjoyed through the 
Atlantic which rolls between us 
and probable foes. Our reputa- 
tion for fair dealing might be im- 
paired. Efficient supervision of 
a mandate at such distance would 
be difficult or impossible. We do 
not need or wish further educa- 
tion in world politics. 

9. Peace and justice would be 
equally assured under any other 
of the great powers. 



10. It would weaken and dis- 
sipate our strength which should 
be reserved for future responsi- 
bilities on the American conti- 
nents and in the Far East. Our 
line of communication to Con- 
stantinople would be at the 
mercy of other naval powers, and 
especially of Great Britain, with 
Gibraltar and Malta, etc., on the 
route. 



THE PEACE CONFERENCE 



347 



Reasons For 
11. America has strong senti- 
mental interests in the region; 
our missions and colleges. 



12. If the United States does 
not take responsibility in this 
region, it is likely that interna- 
tional jealousies will result in a 
continuance of the unspeakable 
misrule of the Turk. 



13. "And the Lord said unto 
Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother ? 
And he said: ' I know not; am I 
my brother's keeper?'" 

Better millions for a mandate 
than billions for future wars. 



Reasons Against 

11. These institutions have 
been respected even by the Turks 
throughout the war and the mas- 
sacres ; and sympathy and respect 
would be shown by any other 
mandatory. 

12. The Peace Conference has 
definitely informed the Turkish 
Government that it may expect 
to go under a mandate. It is 
not conceivable that the League 
of Nations would permit further 
imcontrolled rule by that thor- 
oughly discredited government. 

13. The first duty of America 
is to its own people and its nearer 
neighbours. 

Our country would be involved 
in this adventure for at least a 
generation and in counting the 
cost Congress must be prepared 
to advance some such sums, less 
such amount as the Turkish and 
Transcaucasian revenues could 
afford, for the first five years. 



The Harbord Commission constituted itself attorney 
for both sides to the controversy, and expected the peo- 
ple of America to act as the jury to determine this 
question. 

My own opinion as to the duties of the United States 
toward Turkey is elaborately outlined in an article on 
"Mandates or War?" which I contributed to the New 
York Times on November 9, 1919, and which appears 
in the appendix of this volume, and I hope that those 
of my readers who are really interested in this problem 
will take the trouble to read it. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

MY MISSION TO POLAND 

PARIS, in 1919, had emerged from her darkness. 
She had ceased her weary vigils for air raids. She 
was no longer troubled by the nightmare of 
Emperor William at the head of his army triumphantly 
entering her gates, marching down the Champ s-Elysees, 
and, like his grandfather in 1871, mortally offending her 
pride by defiling the Arc de Triomphe. Instead, she re- 
joiced daily in contemplating the thousands of captured 
German guns which had been placed along this very 
route to celebrate her victory. Crowds of people in their 
hysteric joy wept as they stood before the decorated 
statues of Strassburg and IVIetz, which once again were 
French cities. Versailles was not to be again used to 
crown a German Emperor, who, this time, would have 
been Emperor of the World. On the contrary, Paris was 
to have her revenge, for here were to gather all the repre- 
sentatives of the various victorious nations, as well as the 
neutrals, in an endeavour to formulate a permanent peace. 
When this great conference was in the making, the 
Jews in America had decided to join the Jews of other 
nations in a representative commission at Paris, to make 
an appeal to secure in the Treaty of Peace an assurance 
of the religious and civil rights of the Jews, in the coun- 
tries in which they resided in large numbers, particularly 
in Roumania, Poland, and Russia. The Jews of the 
United States held elections of representatives to a con- 
gress in Philadelphia, which was in turn to select their 
members of the Commission. 

348 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 349 

I was elected a representative from my district. When, 
however, I reached Philadelphia and conferred with some 
of the delegates, I found that the elections had, in general, 
been so skilfully manipulated by the Zionists that they, 
were in complete control, although their views were shared 
by only a small percentage of the Jews in America. 

As I immediately realized that the plans of some of the 
most aggressive members of this controlling minority were 
Nationalistic, which was absolutely contrary to the con- 
victions of the vast majority of Jews in America, includ- 
ing myself, I declined to qualify as a member of the 
congress, and left Philadelphia without attending any of 
its sessions. 

Subsequently, two hundred and seventy-five prominent 
Jews, residing in thirty-seven states of the Union, signed 
a statement which had been prepared by Dr. Henry Ber- 
kowitz, Rev. Dr. David Philipson, the late Professor 
Morris Jastrow, and INIax Senior. This statement de- 
clared amongst other things that : 

As a future form of government for Palestine will undoubtedly be 
considered by the approaching Peace Conference, we, the under- 
signed citizens of the United States, unite in this statement, setting 
forth our objections to the organization of a Jewish state in Palestine 
as proposed by the Zionist societies in this country and Europe, and 
to the segregation of the Jews as a nationalistic unit in any country. 

We feel that in so doing we are voicing the opinion of the majority 
of American Jews born in this country and of those foreign born who 
have lived here long enough to thoroughly assimilate American polit- 
ical and social conditions. The American Zionists represent, accord- 
ing to the most recent statistics available, only a small proportion of 
the Jews living in this country, about 150,000 out of 3,500,000. 
(American Jewish Year Book, 1918, Philadelphia). 

We raise our voices in warning and protest against the demand of 
the Zionists for the reorganization of the Jews as a national unit, to 
whom, now or in the future, territorial sovereignty in Palestine shall 
be committed. This demand not only misinterprets the trend of the 



350 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

history of the Jews, who ceased to be a nation 2,000 years ago, but 
involves the limitation and possible annulment of the larger claims of 
Jews for full citizenship and human rights in all lands in which those 
rights are not yet secure. For the very reason that the new era upon 
which the world is entering aims to establish government everywhere 
on principles of true democracy, we reject the Zionistic project of a 
" national home for the Jewish people in Palestine." 

Zionism arose as the result of the intolerable conditions under 
which the Jews have been forced to live in Russia and Roumania. 
But it is evident that for the Jewish population of these countries, 
variously estimated at from six to ten millions, Palestine can become 
no home land. Even with the improvement of the neglected condition 
of this country, its limited area can offer no solution. The Jewish 
question in Russia and Roumania can be settled only within those 
countries by the grant of full rights of citizenship to Jews. . . . 

Against such a political segregation of the Jews in Palestine, or 
elsewhere, we object, because the Jews are dedicated heart and soul 
to the welfare of the countries in which they dwell under free con- 
ditions. All Jews repudiate every suspicion of a double allegiance, 
but to our minds it is necessarily implied in and cannot by any logic 
be eliminated from establishment of a sovereign State for the Jews 
in Palestine. 

Of this statement I was one of the signers. Congress- 
man Julius Kahn and I were asked to present these views 
to the Conference; Rabbi Isaac Landman, editor of The 
American Hebrew, joined us, and the original text was 
duly filed with the American Commission at Paris. 

There the representatives of the Jews were well organ- 
ized. Their delegation included men from all the coun- 
tries likely to be affected by the Treaty; it had a large 
general commission, a secretariat, committees and sub- 
committees, and it had an Inner Council. The majority 
of the French and British Jews — as represented by the 
Alliance Israelite and the Joint Foreign Committee of 
the Anglo Jewish Association and the Board of Delegates, 
which Claude Montefiore and Lucien Wolff headed — felt 
as did the two hundred and seventy-five American pro- 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 351 

testers and their adherents, whereas the central European 
Jews strongly advocated the Nationalistic idea — and 
when I talked with the delegates from the Philadelphia 
congress, I discovered that even some of those who were 
not Zionists supported the aims of the Nationalists. 

These men argued that Jewish nationalism in Poland 
and Roumania would not be the same as it would be in 
America; that in the United States there would be no 
state-within-a-state, but that recognition of the Jews as 
separate nationals was essential to their well-being in 
central Europe; that even the Germans remaining in 
Poland would have to be protected as separate nationals, 
and that the general principle must be formally rec- 
ognized. 

Every man has his master-passion : mine is for deinoc- 
racy. I believe that history's best effort in democracy is 
the United States, which has rooted in its Constitution all 
that any group of its citizens can legitimately desire. Yet 
here were >tVmericans willing to cooperate with central 
Europeans who wanted to establish in their own coun- 
tries a "nation within a nation" — a proposition funda- 
mentally opposed to our American principles. 

I pointed this out. I said that, under this plan, a Jew 
in Poland or Roumania, for example, would soon face 
conflicting duties, and that any American who advocated 
such a conflict of allegiance for the Jews of central Europe 
would perhaps expose the Jews in America to the sus- 
picion of harbouring a similar desire. Minorities every- 
where, I maintained, would fare better if they protected 
their religious rights in the countries where they resided, 
and then joined their fellow countrymen in bettering for 
all its inhabitants the land of their common citizenship. 

Meanwhile, excesses had occurred in Poland and Jews 
had suff^ered cruelly. There was genuine resentment 
coupled with real fear that the trouble might develop into 



352 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Kiev or Kishineff disasters. There was the feeUng that 
Poland, who had just emerged from her yoke of tyranny, 
should be reminded of the world's expectation that she 
should grant to her minorities the same privileges which 
her centuries of oppression had taught her to value for 
herself. 

The Jews emphasized their expectations by holding 
mass meetings, parades, and demonstrations in the United 
States and England. In New York, 15,000 Jews packed 
Madison Square Garden, and many thousands more, in- 
cluding 3,000 in uniform, stood in the surrounding streets. 
The leading address was delivered by Charles E. Hughes. 
Resolutions were passed calling upon President Wilson 
to stop these outbreaks, and to secure permanent pro- 
tection. 

That was in May, 1919. In early June, Hugh Gibson, 
who had been our Minister at Warsaw for a few weeks 
only, was asked for a report. He made a necessarily 
hasty investigation. The conclusions he arrived at in his 
report were greatly resented by some Jews, who charged 
him with unduly favouring the Poles. Gibson came to 
Paris, and was joined by Herbert Hoover, then managing 
the American Relief Work in Poland, and by Paderewski 
representing Poland at the Peace Conference, to urge 
President Wilson to appoint an investigating commission 
to ascertain the truth. The President designated a com- 
mission composed of Colonel Warwick Greene, Homer H. 
Johnson, and myself. As Colonel Greene decUned, Gen- 
eral Edgar Jadwin was appointed in his place. 

My reluctance to serve was great, my position difficult, 
and the American members of the Jewish delegation did 
not attempt to diminish the one or ease the other. My 
announced opposition to the NationaHst theory and my 
attitude toward Zionism were against me; they unani- 
mously disapproved of my acceptance ; and the arguments 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 353 

they presented to me were forcible. In one breath, they 
said that they wanted a Zionist on the Commission ; in the 
next, they told me that it should include no Jew; in the 
third, they would express the conviction that nobody could 
be successful: a report in favour of one side was sure to 
displease the other. 

On my part, I felt that I must give some consideration 
to these men who had devoted so much of their lives to the 
Jewish question and to administering so many of the relief 
activities in America. Until this period, I had always 
heartily cooperated with them, yet I realized the absolute 
need of a fearless, impartial investigation and that, prefer- 
ably, with the participation therein of a Jew. 

My hesitation is shown in the following message from 
the Secretary-General of the American Peace Delegation 
to the Under-Secretary of State at Washington: 



Polk, Washington, 

Morgenthau has been requested by President to serve with Warwick 
Greene and Homer Johnson on commission to investigate pogroms 
against Jews and Jewish persecutions stop Marshall, Cyrus Adler 
advise him to decline urging that no Jew be appointed stop Morgen- 
thau is in doubt and requests that you promptly ascertain opinion 
of Schiflf, Wise, Elkus, Nathan Straus, Rosenwald and Samson Lach- 
man as to his acceptance. 

Joseph C. Grew. 



I even told Louis Marshall and Dr. Cyrus Adler that 
I would second their efforts against my appointment, and 
I kept my word. When I found that my messages to 
the President failed to move him, I insisted on a personal 
interview with him, hoping then to dissuade him, and, on 
June 26th, two days before the signing of the Treaty and 
the President's return to America, this was secured. When 
I stated to him that I wanted to be relieved from the Com- 



354, ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

mission, and suggested that no Jew should be put on 
same, he rephed, with great emphasis, that he had defi- 
nitely concluded to put a Jew on the Commission, so as 
to secure for the Jews in Poland a sjTnpathetic hearing, 
and that he had selected me to be entrusted with this task 
and hoped that I would not refuse to serve. 

"Your putting it that way," I answered, "makes it a 
command, and as a good citizen, I will not disobey it." 

Just returned from Lithuania and anxious to see his 
suggestions in regard to that country pushed to realiza- 
tion, Colonel Greene begged to be relieved from serving 
on the Polish Mission, and the President left it to General 
Pershing and myself to secure some other army officer. 
I went to the General's residence on the momentous 
morning of the signing of the Peace Treaty. 

"Let's step into the garden," he said, and, turning to 
General Harbord, added: "You come along." 

It was a bright spring morning. The acres of garden, 
hidden from the streets of the Boulevard St. Germain 
district, and rich from centuries of care, stretched green 
and quiet before us. We sat on an old stone seat, and 
Pershing drew out a memorandum from his pocket. 

"Here," he told me, "are the names of the general 
officers that I have picked out for some recognition. Now, 
Morgenthau, tell me what sort of officer it is that you 
want." 

In a most comprehensive way he ran through the names 
and explained the special attainments and attributes of 
each man mentioned. Here was the honour list of the 
A. E. F., and the man who was explaining it to me was 
he whose name was entitled to stand in capitals at its top. 
The experience was like going through a picture gallery 
with an expert pointing out the "best in every portrait, 
and Harbord throwing in an illuminating remark every 
now and then, was a connoisseur at the expert's elbow. I 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 355 

realized that the portraits were all real masterpieces — 
no antiques — all moderns. They were the select of the 
selected, but the two that apparently best suited our 
present purpose were Mason M. Patrick and Edgar 
Jadwin. 

"Our commission," I repeated, "is expected to conduct 
a real search for the truth, without prejudice; to be well 
balanced, the third member should be a man who will 
work judicially, but be unencumbered with a legal educa- 
tion and the quibbles that usually accompany it." And, 
I added: "Both Johnson and I are lawyers." 

Pershing replied: "If you mean a man who will balance 
facts mathematically and then arrive at a conclusion, as 
an engineer does, then Jadwin is the man for you." 

"Very well," I said, "we'll take Jadwin. Where is he?" 

"I'll have him meet you at the Crillon this afternoon," 
said Pershing, and he kept his word. 

Johnson, Jadwin, and I organized our commission at 
the Crillon before sunset that day. I left it to Jadwin to 
choose our executive secretary; he chose Lieutenant- 
Colonel INI, C. Bryant; we borrowed Major Henry S. 
Otto from Hoover, and selected as Counsel, Captain Ar- 
thur L. Goodhart who had been Assistant Corporation 
Counsel of New York. 

That same night, Paderewski gave a dinner at the Ritz. 
In its potentialities, in the sharp contrasts of character 
presented by the guests, it was one of the most dramatic 
events connected with the preparations for my trip to 
Poland. 

The Versailles Conference was over. President Wil- 
son, to whom the world still looked for leadership, was 
starting home within an hour, taking with him the Cove- 
nant of the League of Nations. The Treaty had just 
been signed; the ink was scarcely dry on the signatures 
to that document containing Article 93: 



356 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Poland accepts and agrees to embody in a Treaty with the Princi- 
pal Allied and Associated Powers such provisions as may be deemed 
necessary by the said Powers to protect the interests of inhabitants 
of Poland who differ from the majority of the population in race, 
language, or religion. 

And now, around that dinner-table sat, among others, 
Paderewski, Dmowski, and Lansing, signers of the 
Treaty, and Hugh Gibson and myself: Lansing, who as 
ranking member of the Peace Commission, represented 
the government that held the balance of the world-power ; 
Paderewski, Poland's Premier, who realized that the very 
life of his native land depended on peace at home and 
good opinion abroad, and that these could be secured 
only by a satisfactory settlement of the Jewish problem 
within the Polish boundaries; Hugh Gibson, American 
Minister to Warsaw, whose report on that problem had 
increased the storm of Jewish protest; Roman Dmowski, 
the leader of Anti-Semitism in Poland, admittedly its 
fomenter, who had found Article 93 a bitter pill; and I, 
who had been appointed to go to Poland to find out the 
absolute truth. 

Far from depressing me, this juxtaposition had a stim- 
ulating effect. More than ever, I realized the delicacy of 
the task with which I had been entrusted. In the respect 
paid to me at this dinner Dmowski's Anti-Semitism had 
obviously received quite a jolt, and I wanted to have a 
talk with him. Paderewski, Lansing, and Gibson dra- 
matically left the table to hurry to the railway station and 
bid good-bye to President Wilson. When they had re- 
turned and the dinner was over, I said to Lansing : 

"Here is your chance to tell Dmowski how the Ameri- 
can Peace Commission feels about our proposed work in 
Poland." 

Lansing assented, and after a brief talk with Dmowski, 
drew him, Gibson, and myself aside, and I had my first 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 357 

man-to-man talk with the organizer of the anti-Jewish 
economic and social boycott in Poland. 

Dmowski was a heavy, domineering figure, with a thick 
neck and a big, close-cropped head bearing the bulldog 
jaw and the piercing eyes of the ward-boss. I had 
learned his story: in the days of Russian domination he 
had tried to force the Jews of his Warsaw district to sup- 
port his machine's candidate for a seat in the Fourth 
(1912) Douma; they refused to vote for his man, who was 
an Anti-Semite, threw their influence in favour of the 
Sociahst candidate Jagellan, and elected him. Dmowski 
ever after, through his newspaper and in his position as a 
leader of the National Democratic Party of Poland, pur- 
sued the cunning policy of making Anti-Semitism a 
party issue. It was a wilful plot, based on personal spite, 
to destroy the Polish Jews. 

"Mr. Dmowski," I said, "I understand that you are an 
Anti-Semite, and I want to know how you feel toward our 
Commission." 

He replied in an almost propitiating manner: 

"My Anti-Semitism isn't rehgious: it is political. And 
it is not pohtical outside of Poland. It is entirely a mat- 
ter of Polish party politics. It is only from that point of 
view that I regard it or your mission. Against a non- 
Polish Jew I have no prejudice, political or otherwise. 
I'll be glad to give you any information that I possess." 

He then sketched, with vigour, the arguments against 
Jewish nationalism and touched on the Socialist activities 
of one section of the PoHsh Jews. He also said: "There 
never was a pogrom in Poland. Lithuanian Jews, fleeing 
Russian persecution in 1908, spoke Russian obtrusively 
and banded together to employ only Jewish lawyers and 
doctors; they started boycotting; the Poles' boycott was 
a necessary retaliation. On the other hand, the Posen 
Jews speak German and the others Yiddish, which is 



358 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

based on German: we want the Polish language in 
Poland." 

I arranged to have him meet General Jadwin and my- 
self. He did so and frankly explained his attitude 
toward the Jews and his participation in the Economic 
Boycott. He had no moral qualms as to his using so 
destructive a method in his political fight. He said that 
unless the Jews would abandon their exclusiveness, they 
had better leave the country. He wanted Poland for 
the Poles alone — and made no secret of this desire. 

Dmowski admitted his unf amiliarity with financial con- 
ditions and referred us to Grabski whom he brought to 
see us. We also conferred with the Pro- Semite, Dr. 
Tsulski, and a number of other Poles and Polish Jews in 
Paris. I immediately encountered the clash of views 
that was to continue throughout my entire investigation. 

The more I talked with the different factional leaders, 
the more I felt that they were speaking not so much from 
deep conviction as from pohtical expediency. Out of that 
feeling I evolved my ideal of what our Commission ought 
to accomplish. 

Here was Poland, who was expected to prevent a Ger- 
man-Russian combination — a new family in the Clan of 
Progressive Peoples; and no sooner had it entered the 
Clan than it developed a family feud. Now, the welfare 
of the separate families is the welfare of the Clan. For 
the Clan's sake, Poland must be saved; otherwise, it 
would be an easy prey to the common enemy. The in- 
vestigator's duty was not merely to ascertain, if that were 
possible, which of the two contending factions had told the 
truth, or which exaggerated; we were the representatives 
of the most powerful participant in the Conference that 
projected the League of Nations; it was for us to see 
whether the quarrel could not be amicably settled, and 
the new family saved to do its part for the Clan. 




© Keystone 



IGNACE padp:rewski 

Premier of Poland, and her representative at Paris, who 
suggested that the American Mission be sent, and later, in 
Poland, aided it. 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 359 

Nor was that all. Our experiment was a new one in 
history. We were not a delegation of conquerors dic- 
tating to the parties of a newly subdued province. We 
believed that if internecine wars were to be prevented in 
the future, one of the best methods might now be proved 
to be investigations and recommendations, made as early 
in the quarrel as possible by disinterested outsiders, who 
would represent an international tribunal with power to 
act. 

Accordingly, Gibson and I decided that the Polish 
Commission must set out armed with instructions that 
would carry it far. We consulted Mr. Lansing, and the 
following letter resulted: 

Paris, June 30, 1919. 
Mv DEAR Mr. Morgenthau: 

As I understand that you and your colleagues on the Mission to 
Poland are beginning your preliminary work here, I desire to make 
some general observations as to the character of the task confided to 
you by the President. 

The President was convinced of the desirability of sending a Com- 
mission to Poland to investigate Jewish matters after he had been 
made acquainted with the various reports of the situation there. His 
view was supported by the request of the Polish Government, through 
Mr. Paderewski, that an American Mission be sent to establish the 
truth of the various reports concerning his country. Mr. Gibson, the 
American Minister to Poland, some time ago asked that such a 
Mission be sent to Poland and outlined his idea of what it should 
endeavour to accomplish. 

It is desired that your Mission make careful inquiry into all 
matters affecting the relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish 
elements in Poland. This will, of course, involve the investigation of 
the various massacres, pogroms, and other excesses alleged to have 
taken place, the economic boycott, and other methods of discrimina- 
tion against the Jewish race. The establishment of the truth in re- 
gard to these matters is not, however, an end in itself; it is merely for 
the purpose of seeking to discover the reason lying behind such 
excesses and discriminations with a view to finding a possible remedy. 
The American Government, as you know, is inspired by a friendly 



360 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

desire to render service to all elements in the new Poland — Christians 
and Jews alike. I am convinced that any measure that may be 
taken to ameliorate the conditions of the Jews will also benefit the 
rest of the population and that, conversely, anything done for the 
community benefit of Poland as a whole, will be of advantage to the 
Jewish race. I am sure that the members of your Mission are ap- 
proaching the subject in the right spirit, free from prejudice one 
way or the other, and filled with a desire to discover the truth and 
evolve some constructive measures to improve the situation which 
gives concern to all the friends of Poland. 

I am, my dear Mr. Morgenthau, with every hope that your Mission 
may result in lasting good, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Robert Lansing. 

Our Commission arrived in Warsaw on the 13th of 
July, and we were immediately immersed in the vortex of 
Polish affairs. 

The Jewish masses looked upon us as hoped-for de- 
liverers, and upon me as a second Moses Montefiore, but 
no other faction was pleased at our presence. Paderew- 
ski's request that we be sent was far from representing 
the wishes of the entire Polish people; the majority of 
the Goverrmient — particularly Pilsudski, the Chief of 
State, and his group — had difficulty in concealing their 
mistrust of the Mission, and a large portion of the press 
unreservedly described our purpose as a piece of uncalled- 
for interference. 

As no enduring benefit was likely to be accomplished 
unless we won the good will of all concerned, we saw at 
once that to secure this was only secondary to our discov- 
ering the truth. Accordingly, as soon as we were settled 
in the Raczynski Palace, where the Poles signed their 
Declaration of Independence in 1790, we began a long 
series of conferences with men from all the political fac- 
tions, persons of the various religious faiths, members of 
the Cabinet and Parliament, the Volks-Partei, the Ar- 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 361 

beiter-Verein, and with Jews — Zionistic, Assimilators, 
and Orthodox. Of the Jewish members of the ParHa- 
ment there were Dr. Grynenbaum, Dr. Thon, IMr. Farb- 
stein, Hardclass, Dr. Rosenblatt, who were Nationahstic 
Zionists; Dr. Weinza, who was a Radical Zionist; and 
Dr. Schipper, who was a Socialistic Zionist. Then there 
were Preludski, and Hirsthorn of the Volks-Partei ; and 
Rabbis Perlmutter and Halpern of the Orthodox Jewish 

party. 

Our quarters were flooded with visitors. To our first 
sitting came representatives of the Zionists to state their 
case, and then the picturesque Rabbi Perlmutter, with his 
white, patriarchal beard, who, accompanied by two other 
rabbis, called to extend the welcome of the Orthodox 
Jews. 

That was the beginning of a full fortnight of Warsaw 
hearings. Day after day, we sat there, listening, ques- 
tioning, taking voluminous notes, making bulky records. 
There came representatives from the Jews of Lodz, Lem- 
berg, Cracow, Vilna, and other towns — each delegation 
with its own story and each entreating us to visit its city 
and conduct personal investigations there. The story of 
the men from Minsk is worth repeating: they claimed pos- 
session of definite information of a conspiracy against 
them whereby, when the Polish Army should enter ^Minsk, 
Anti-Semitic Bolshevist soldiers, lagging in the rear of 
the Bolsheviki's retreat, would "snipe" at the conquerors 
from houses occupied by Jews, so that the Jews would 
be blamed and pogroms result; they even gave the loca- 
tion of the houses. 

Thus it went from morning until night. One day 
there were ten different delegations, each important, each 
interesting, to be listened to. It was not long before we 
found, to our surprise, that the chief sources of trouble 
could be traced to a comparatively few factional leaders, 



862 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

not more than would fill a small room, and that for these 
the opportunity to express their clashing views was in 
itself a relief to the tenseness of the situation. 

In a class by himself, however, was Rabbi Rubenstein, 
who came from Vilna when we were in the middle of one 
of our endless conferences with Warsaw Zionists. He 
was a Lithuanian and though he had been flogged for re- 
fusing to sign a paper charging the Bolsheviki with the 
Vilna outrages, he was still defiant toward the Poles. 
Learned in more than Jewish scholarship, he had a grasp 
of the economic laws involved in the present difficulties 
and a keen understanding of world politics that was 
touched with statesmanship. But, above all, he was the 
shepherd pleading for his sheep; he displayed a pathetic 
faith that here at last was a tribunal anxious to dispense 
justice. Imagine a face like that of some mediaeval ar- 
tist's "Christ," lined with the horror of his recent expe- 
riences ; eyes wide with the grief that they had suffered in 
witnessing the massacre of the flower of his flock. His 
gesturing hands shook, his voice was broken by emotion, 
but he recounted the history of these now well-known 
Vilna excesses with an eloquence that was all the more 
moving because it was wholly unstudied, and every now 
and then the current of his speech was broken by spas- 
modic ebullitions of resentment which he could no longer 
repress. 

He begged us not to make the mistake of previous 
hasty investigators. He implored us to spend at least 
three days in Vilna. His community had retained two 
lawyers, who had collected all the evidence; everything 
would be thoroughly prepared, but there were so many 
witnesses to be examined that a three days' sojourn was 
the minimum necessity. Here, it was clear, was no re- 
ligious fanatic; his plea was so brilliant, his sincerity so 
convincing, that we readily agreed with his request. 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 363 

I have said that the Zionists were our first callers ; they 
were also our most constant. We were soon in close con- 
tact with all their leaders, attended their meetings, and 
studied their activities. Some were pro-Russian, all were 
practically non-Polish, and the Zionism of most of them 
was simply advocacy of Jewish Nationalism within the 
Polish state. Thus, when the committee of the Djem, or 
Polish Constitutional Assembly, called on us, led by Gry- 
nenbaum, Farbstein, and Thon — all men who had dis- 
carded the dress and beard of the Orthodox Jew — and 
when I discovered that they were really authorized to 
represent that section of the Jews that had complained to 
the world of the alleged pogroms, I notified them that we 
were willing to give them several hours a day until they 
had completed the presentation of their case to their entire 
satisfaction. That programme was adhered to. 

Besides their version of the excesses, they presented 
evidence of considerable political bad faith and much 
economic oppression on the part of a section of the Poles. 
Contrary to explicit understanding, an election had been 
set for the Jewish Sabbath; and there had been gerry- 
mandering at Bialystok, so that in the municipal election 
the Jewish votes had been swamped by voters admitted 
from surrounding villages. We were told of the develop- 
ment of cooperative stores which both excluded the Jews 
as members and were pledged against patronizing Jewish 
wholesale merchants or manufacturers. 

"But," we asked, "j^ou don't expect to end these things 
by propaganda for an exodus to Palestine?" 

They admitted that taking anything short of 50,000 
Jews a year out of Poland would effect no noticeable de- 
crease in the population there. They were afraid that 
the Government intended to treat the Jews in the old way 
and that they would not be given rights equal to those of 
other Polish citizens; if they could not go to Palestine, if 



364 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

they were to be regarded as a foreign mass in the Pohsh 
body pohtic, they wanted the privileges that they felt 
ought to be granted them, to offset the privations of such 
a situation. To that end they were employing the Zionist 
agitation. 

"We want," they said, "to be permitted to vote for 
Jewish representatives no matter what part of the country 
we or they live in. The Jews form fourteen per cent, of 
Poland's population. We want a fourteen per cent, rep- 
resentation in Poland's Parhament. That will give us 
fifty-six members instead of the eleven Jewish members 
there at present." 

They admitted that their fifty-six could sway legislation 
only in case of close divisions among the other parties. 

Then there were the Assimilators, whose attitude was 
the extreme opposite of the Zionists. They invited us 
to a reception, and we found them very intelligent and 
deeply interested in the future of Poland — distinct in no 
detail of dress or speech, and holding membership in 
political parties on purely Polish principles, just as a 
Jew in America may be a Democrat or a Republican 
without reference to his religion. They regarded Juda- 
ism as a matter of faith. They were prosperous, many of 
them were professional men, and all of them mingled on 
a footing of social equality with the Christians. 

The meeting of the old order with the new presented 
many a contrast. I recall particularly a reception of 
which the Countess Zermoysky, representing the ancient 
aristocracy, was one of the attractions. That was like 
an episode under Louis XIV transported untouched into 
the modern world. Amid ornate decorations, lavish re- 
freshments, excellent music, and displays of fireworks, 
the pretty Countess presided with all the grace and charm 
of a lady of the court of the Grand ^lonarch; beside her 
towered General Pilsudski, the gruff and bluff Chief of 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 365 

State of the new Polish regime. The old aristocracy 
was flirting with the modern forces-in-power, and the 
modernists, more than a httle flattered, were by no means 
repelling these charming attentions. 

Nothing could have been more interesting. While 
Ambassador at Constantinople, I had seen the disintegra- 
tion of Turkey. In Paris I had been present at the ob- 
sequies of the German and Austrian Empires ; here I was 
attending a christening, with parents and god-parents, 
nursery governesses and prospective tutors and guard- 
ians, all discussing the child's career. 

Our escort, :M. Skrzynski, the Acting Foreign Secre- 
tary, turned to me: 

"In judging the Poles," he said in that soft, musical 
voice of his, "you must remember that we are really a 
sweet and sentimental people. The new government has 
not yet assumed the full authority dropped by the Rus- 
sians. We are still uncertain whether, if we tighten the 
reins, the horse may balk. Once the horse was the people ; 
now the people are the drivers. We are wondering 
whether the bit will hurt the tender mouths of the aristo- 
crats." 

He was a tall, handsome fellow, this Skrzynski, with 
the head of a Beethoven and the manners of a Chester- 
field. He looked an amateur artist. He was one of 
those who came into the new government from the old 
aristocracy; but he never forgot his part as a loyal Repub- 
lican and evinced an almost boyish pride in his work. 

One evening we were asked to supper by a certain man 
of title. His manner was exceedingly cordial and broad- 
minded, and he had ransacked the entire neighbourhood 
to make his banquet a great success. He had invited 
some of the prominent Jews of his city. He showed us 
with great pride a statue of Napoleon by Houdon, and 
other fine works of art. Captain Goodhart, the counsel 



366 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

of the Commission, was sitting with the titled personage's 
niece, a vivacious girl of about eighteen. 

"Just look at uncle and aunt," she whispered, "how 
charmingly they are treating the Ambassador. They 
are just loading him down with attentions. It seems 
strange to me, to see a Jew treated with such consideration 
in our home. You know, I just detest the Jews, don't 
youf 

"Well, really," he said, "I can't possibly agree with you, 
because I am a Jew myself." 

The little Countess was all confusion. 

"Don't — don't tell my uncle what I have said," she 
begged, "he would never forgive me!" 

Askenazy is another personage of those days whom I 
shall long remember. One of the great scholars of Lem- 
berg University, he was known as the foremost historian 
of Central Europe; since then he has become a familiar 
international figure as Poland's representative at the 
Geneva meetings of the League of Nations. An oc- 
casional attendant at the Synagogue, he was nevertheless 
a pronounced Assimilator and enormously proud of the 
fact that his family have lived in Poland since 1650. 

Askenazy saw small benefit to anybody in the alleged 
privileges of educational separation granted the Polish 
Jews by the Treaty. 

"If the Jews have their own schools," he said, "that will 
only widen the difference between them and the Poles." 

I reminded him that the separation extended merely to 
the primary schools. 

"It will be gradually applied to the high schools," he 
insisted, "and then to the universities. In their primary 
schools, the Jewish children will of course be taught He- 
brew or Yiddish; that will make it next to impossible for 
them to mix with the pupils of the higher grades when 
they get there." 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 367 

Very impressive was our visit to the chief synagogue 
of Warsaw. There must have been 25,000 people pres- 
ent. Outside the building, those clamouring for en- 
trance literally jammed the square, and the streets for 
several blocks surrounding it, from house wall to house 
wall; inside, the crowd was so dense that every man's 
shoulder overlapped his neighbour's. The cries from the 
street made it imperative for us to show ourselves there, 
after the services, when we were almost mobbed. Some 
of the crowd wanted to pull our automobile to our home ; 
others clamoured to carry us there on their shoulders, and 
something close to good-natured force had to be used to 
enable us to reach our car. Rubenstein came from Vilna 
for the meeting; there was a delegation from Posen; and 
Dr. Thon represented the Jews of the Parliament. An 
eminent nerve specialist from Posen, in his speech, stated 
that the nervous condition of the Jews should be at- 
tributed to "Halleritis" — a fear of what the Polish Army 
under General Haller might next do to them ; while Poz- 
nansky, the Rabbi, in his address, laid stress on the Jews' 
desire to be first class, and not second class, Polish citi- 
zens. 

This is not the place to recapitulate all the details of our 
journey through Poland. In Vilna, where our calendar 
was overcrowded, we got through a really incredible 
amount of work, by running three tribunals, each with an 
investigator, interpreter, and stenographer. The accounts 
of the evidence — of the testimony concerning the outrages 
to which the Jews had undoubtedly been subjected — all 
the world has long since read. I shall touch only on three 
incidents: those at Stanislawa, Pinsk, and Vilna. 

From Stanislawa, the Christian authorities had asked 
for a visit from our Commission to prevent a provocation 
of a pogrom by the Jews. When I arrived, the Burgo- 
master explained that the Jews' sympathy with the 



3G8 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

Ukrainians might provoke an attack of the Polish citi- 
zens. I asked: 

"How is your city governed?" 

"By a representative committee of Christians and 
Jews." 

"How many Christians?" 

"Sixty." 

"And how many Jews?" 

"One." 

I said I should like to see that one. 

"Well," said the Burgomaster, "you see he wasn't on 
good terms with the Zionists, and so he had to go." 

I sent for a committee of Jewish residents. 

They told us of their fearful predicament. The gov- 
ernmental control of their city had changed six times in 
four years. Each time it changed, the new power, be it 
Austrian, Polish, or Ukrainian, would punish them for 
having been loyal to their predecessor. If they remained 
neutral, all would make them suffer. "What are we to 
do?" 

I guessed now what the local authorities had been up 
to. They were anti-Jewish and, if the federal govern- 
ment had not sent somebody in answer to their request, 
they would have interpreted that as the sanctioning of fur- 
ther excesses. I therefore had the Burgomaster and his 
friends in again, and declared that the republic's authori- 
ties realized that Poland's standing with the outside world 
depended on her justice to the Jews. 

"You are politicians, and I am a politician," I con- 
cluded, "therefore we can talk in that language. You 
have been preparing for a pogrom. Now I want to tell 
you that your government is as anxious as I am to avoid 
further maltreatment of the Jews, and if any occurs in 
Stanislawa, you will be removed from office." 

After we had a friendly discussion of the plight in which 



MY AMISSION TO POLAND 369 

the local Jews found themselves, the Burgomaster assured 
me that there would be no difficulties in his city, and there 
were none. 

I wish that I could adequately describe the scene that I 
witnessed in Pinsk. It has haunted me ever since, and 
has seemed a complete expression of the misery and injus- 
tice which is prevalent over such a large part of the world 
to-day. A few months before our arrival, a particularly 
atrocious Jewish massacre occurred. A Polish officer, 
Major Letoviski, and fifteen of his troops had entered an 
assembly-hall where the leading Jewish residents had gath- 
ered, as a committee in behalf of the American Joint Dis- 
tribution Committee, to distribute supplies of flour for the 
unleavened Passover bread. The Poles arrested these 
Jews and marched them hurriedly to the public square 
and in the dim light of an automobile lamp, placed thirty- 
five of them against the cathedral wall and shot them in 
cold blood. 

A somewhat hazy charge had been made that these men 
were Bolshevists, but no trial was given them, and, in- 
deed, the charge was subsequently shown to be untrue. 
Returning to the scene of execution on the next morning, 
the troops found that three of their victims were still 
breathing; these they despatched, and all the thirty-five 
corpses were then thrown into a pit in an old Jewish ceme- 
tery, without an opportunity for decent burial or religious 
exercises, and with nothing to mark the graves. 

Up to the time that our Commission came, not a single 
Jew had been permitted to visit that cemetery ; but I was 
allowed to inspect the scene of this martyrdom, and, 
when I entered, a great crowd of Jews, who had followed 
me, also went in. As soon as they reached the burial 
place of their relatives, they all threw themselves upon the 
ground, and set up a wailing that still rings in my ears; 
it expressed the misery of centuries. 



370 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

That same evening I attended divine service at the Pinsk 
synagogue. The building was crowded to its capacity, 
the men wedged into ahnost a solid mass. Those that 
could not enter were gathered outside. All the Jews of 
Pinsk were there. This was their first opportunity since 
April to express their grief in their house of worship. 
This huge mass cried and screamed until it seemed that 
the heavens would burst. I had read of such public ex- 
pression of agony in the Old Testament, but this was the 
first time that I ever completely realized what the collect- 
ive grief of a persecuted people was like. To me it 
expressed the misery of centuries and remains a pitiful 
memory and symbol of the cry for help that is still going 
forth from a great part of Europe. 

Who were these thirty-five victims? They were the 
leaders of the local Jewish community, the spiritual and 
moral leaders of the 5,000 Jews in a city, eighty-five per 
cent, of the population of which was Jewish; the organ- 
izers of the charities, the directors of the hospitals, the 
friends of the poor. And yet, to that incredibly brutal, 
and even more incredibly stupid, officer who ordered their 
execution, they were only so many Jews. 

Something of the same sort happened at Vilna. There 
was fighting between the advancing Poles and the retir- 
ing Bolsheviki; shots were fired from private houses 
against the Polish troops, and the Poles, in the anger of 
their new-found authority, assumed that the Jewish house- 
owners were guilty. They did not stop to learn the fact 
that the Jews of Vilna were glad to get rid of Bolshevist 
rule: they slaughtered or deported all who were suspects 
— men like Jaff e, that Jewish poet who lived in a world of 
his own beautiful and harmless dreams, were treated 
shamefully. 

These descriptions of the occurrences at Pinsk and 
Vilna are totally inadequate to describe the fearful plight 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 371 

of the Jews. Even the fuller accounts contained in my 
official report to the American Commission to Negotiate 
Peace — which is printed in full in the Appendix — does 
not adequately portray the sad conditions of these Jews 
in Poland at present. Giving harrowing details will not 
remedy the situation, and might be misconstrued and do 
harm to those suffering people. Hence, I have abstained. 

It was in Vilna that we had a real show-down with the 
Chief of State of Poland. All this time we had been in 
the unpleasant position of a delegation of foreigners en- 
deavouring to render a service to a country whose presi- 
dent openly resented our presence there. 

"Pogroms?" Pilsudski had thundered when I first called 
on him. It was in the Czar's summer palace near War- 
saw that he was living, and he received me in the "library" 
where there was not a book to be seen. "There have been 
no pogroms in Poland! — nothing but unavoidable acci- 
dents." 

I asked the difference. 

"A pogrom," he explained reluctantly, "is a massacre 
ordered by the government, or not prevented by it when 
prevention is possible. Among us no wholesale killings 
of Jews have been permitted. Our trouble isn't religious ; 
it is economic. Our petty dealers are Jews. Many of 
them have been war-profiteers, some have had dealings 
with the Germans or the Bolsheviki, or both, and this has 
created a prejudice against Jews in general." 

At that meeting he stormed against the new school reg- 
ulations; they would not only ghettoize the Jews, but, 
and here his real objection revealed itself, they were re- 
pugnant because forced upon the country from the out- 
side. 

"Russia," he declared, "will return to autocracy: the 
Russians can survive even the privations of Bolshevism. 
But our problem is vastly different. We have become a 



372 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

free republic, and we propose to remain one, in spite of 
interference. The Poles and the Jews can't live together 
on friendly terms for years to come, but they will manage 
it at last. In the meantime, the Jew will have all his 
legal rights. It is our own affair; our own honour is in- 
volved, and we are entirely able to guard it." 

Now our Commission was at Vilna, and Pilsudski came 
there ; it was his birthplace, and here were we invading it 
with an American Commission. Etiquette required that 
Jadwin and I should call on him. 

The president was quartered in the Bishop's Palace. 
We were received with great formality and ushered 
through several vast rooms before we reached the audience- 
chamber. A storm was brewing, the light was dim. We 
found ourselves in a great big uninviting room, with long 
windows opening on a large court. War had stripped it 
of all its ancient hangings ; the old furniture that belonged 
there must have vanished, in its stead were a few pieces of 
cheap and stiff modern manufacture. There was a desk 
at the far end, and at it was seated Pilsudski. 

He was a huge, forbidding man. His uniform, buttoned 
tight to the base of his big neck, was unadorned by any 
orders — the uniform of a fighter. His square jaw was 
thrust out below thick lips firmly set ; his face was abnor- 
mally broad, with cheekbones high and prominent; his 
cropped hair bristled and his snapping eyes glinted from 
under a thicket caused by his heavy eyebrows that met 
across his forehead. 

He had evidently been reading the Anti-Semitic news- 
papers to advantage and was determined to give me a 
piece of his mind. The storm from heaven broke just as 
the verbal torrent began, and the patter of the rain on the 
stones of the old courtyard wove in and out like an orches- 
'tral obligato to the Wagnerian recitative of the Polish 
Chief -of -State. He spoke in German — a language ex- 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 373 

cellently suited to his purpose — and soon the ancient 
rafters were ringing with his invective. 

He declared that he was the chosen head of 20,000,000 
people and would defend their dignity. He represented 
the Pohsh Government, the ruling power of a people that 
had been a nation when America was unknown, and here 
was a committee of Americans stepping between the 
elected Government of Poland and the Polish electors — 
positively belittling the former to the latter. He dis- 
missed as unfounded the stories about bad treatment of 
prisoners. He asserted that, considering Vilna's popula- 
tion of 150,000, civihan casualties in the three days' fight- 
ing for its occupation had been comparatively few. 
Excesses? The exaggerations of the foreign press con- 
cerning what had happened to a relatively small number 
of Jews had been monstrous — one would think the country 
drenched with blood, whereas the occurrences had been 
mere trifles inevitably incident to any conquest. 

"These little mishaps," he said, "were all over, and 
now you come here to stir the whole thing up again and 
probably make a report that may still further hurt our 
credit abroad. The Polish people resent even the charge 
of ever having deserved distrust: how then can your 
activities have any other effect than to increase the racial 
antipathy that you say you want to end?" 

He was most bitter when he referred to Article 93. 

"Why not trust to Poland's honour?" he shouted. 
"Don't plead that the article's concessions are few in num- 
ber or negative in character! Let them be as small or as 
negative as you please, that article creates an authority — 
a power to which to appeal — outside the laws of this coun- 
try! Every faction within Poland was agreed on doing 
justice to the Jew, and yet the Peace Conference, at the 
insistence of America, insults us by telling us that we 
must do justice. That was a public insult to my country 



374 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

just as she was assuming her rightful place among the 
sovereign states of the world!" 

For fully ten minutes he continued his tirade. Noth- 
ing could have stopped him and I didn't try. When he 
was quite out of breath, I said quietly: 

"Well, General, you've made good use of your oppor- 
tunity; you've gotten rid of all your gall. Now let's talk 
from heart to heart." I suited the expression of my face 
to my words ! 

The effect was surprising. He stared at me for a mo- 
ment with unbelieving eyes and then threw back his head 
and burst into a giant laugh. 

Then came my turn. I said that, in my official capa- 
city, I was no Jew, was not even an American, but a rep- 
resentative of all civilized nations and their religions. I 
stood for tolerance in its broadest sense. I explained 
exactly what our Commission was after, told what we had 
done so far and made it clear that we were there not to in- 
jure Poland, but to help her. Pilsudski's entire attitude 
changed; before I left him, he consented to release the 
Jewish prisoners still in custody since April, 1919, "as 
rapidly as each case can be investigated." 

On our return to Warsaw, Billinski, the Minister of 
Finance, told us that, in order to get the Orthodox Jews' 
point of view, we should interview a W under Rahhiner. 
Inquiry convinced me that the outstanding of these, exer- 
cising a vast influence, was Rabbi Alter, of Gory- 
Kalavaria, and, unannounced, Jadwin and I visited him 
at a summer resort near Warsaw. A large number of 
students surrounded him, all gowned in their long black 
kaftans, and bearded in the extreme manner of their sect. 
He presented us to them and to his wife, and I found 
him anti-Zionistic and anti-Nationalistic, but much de- 
pressed because of the harsh treatment of the Jews. I 
asked him to visit me in Warsaw; he came, accompanied 




JOSEPH PILSUDSKI 

Chief of State of Poland, who was not, at first, in sympathy 
with tlie American Mission 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 375 

by his son-in-law and two other Orthodox Rabbis, Lewin 
and Sirkis, and I had a stenographer take down our con- 
versation. 

Space will not permit the reproduction here of all that 
these leaders said, and I shall confine myself to repeating 
just a few of their remarks, and in considering them, it 
should be kept in mind that the Orthodox Jews number 
80 per cent, of the Jewish population of Poland. 

"Our principal conflict," said Rabbi Alter, "is with 
Jews: our chief opponents at every step are the Zionists. 
The Orthodox are satisfied to hve side by side with people 
of different religions. . . . The Zionists side-track 
religion." 

"We are exiled," said Rabbi Lewin; "we cannot be 
freed from our banishment, nor do we wish to be. We 
cannot redeem ourselves. . . . We will abide by our 
religion [in Poland] until God Almighty frees us." 

And again : "We would rather be beaten and suffer for 
our religion [than discard the distinguishing marks of 
Orthodox Judaism, such as not cutting the beard, etc.] 
. . . The Orthodox love Palestine far more than 
others, but they want it as a Holy Land for a holy race." 

News of our proceedings had preceded us to Warsaw, 
and our purpose was beginning to be understood and ap- 
preciated, even by those who had formerly suspected and 
mistrusted us. 

I had another talk there with Pilsudski. He said that 
the Poles and Jews must live together, that their relations 
could never be perfect, but that the Government would 
really do its best to avoid friction. Meantime, he hoped that; 
there would be an end of official missions to inquire into 
the problem; he had no objection to private investigations, 
and, so far as our mission was concerned, he admitted it 
had already had a good effect. He hoped our report would 
satisfy the world enough to end such inquiries, for he did 



876 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

feel that interference from foreign nations was bad for the 
prestige of the government at home. He concluded by 
asking Jadwin and myself to meet his Cabinet at a 
luncheon which he had instructed Skrzynski to arrange. 

Skrzynski opened the talk that followed the luncheon 
by praising our work and our evident incHnation to spare 
Poland's pride. I followed by saying that, though we 
would have to rap Poland's knuckles and blame some of 
the Poles severely for certain excesses and economic per- 
secutions, which I strongly condemned, we would present 
our conclusions with fairness to both sides. It was 
important not to forget that this was a matter in which 
all the world was interested and that only strict honesty 
would satisfy. The Polish authorities had adopted a con- 
tradictory defense, entering a general denial and yet 
pleading justification. They ought to have confessed that 
excesses had occurred, denied any official participation in 
them, frowned upon them, promised to prevent them in 
the future, and punished the culprits. 

Billinski replied for the Cabinet. A man of more than 
seventy, he had held the portfolio of Finance under 
the Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria and was typi- 
cal of the old Continental bureaucracy. He, too, felici- 
tated us on the pleasant ending of our work, concerning 
which, he said, he and his colleagues had entertained such 
grave doubts. Poland, he said, wanted no more "polem- 
ics"; the desire of the government was to quiet things. 
Any admission of mistakes they thought had better be de- 
cided by Paderewski. He hoped that our report would 
call attention to Poland's thousand years of culture, which 
had made her the advance post of civiHzation in eastern 
Europe; would mention that she had ever been tolerant 
toward the Jew and welcomed his arrival and that she did 
not forget how, in the Revolution of 1863, the Jews had 
loyally fought against Russia. They would not have 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 377 

done that, he argued, had the Poles been persecuting 
them. He said it was unfortunate that, in the recent war, 
some Jews had informed against the Poles in Galicia and 
thereby created the prejudice against them. 

"The Pole," he concluded, "must live side-by-side with 
the Jew and wants to do it in peace." 

What, in this question of Anti-Semitism, were the feel- 
ings of that member of the government who is best known 
to all the world? Ignace Paderewski is not only not an 
Anti-Semite: he is infinitely the greatest of the modern 
Poles. 

After my experience at the sjTiagogue in Warsaw, to 
which I have already referred, I asked Paderewski if he 
would not accompany me to service some Friday. I said 
that he was charged with being Anti-Semitic. 

"How ridiculous!" he answered. 

"M. Paderewski," I explained. "I know you are not 
Anti-Semitic, and you know that you are not — but how 
are the people to be convinced of it?" 

Paderewski at once saw the point. He was anxious to 
refute the charge against him, yet his caution prompted 
him to consult his political associates, who advised against 
his adoption of my suggestion. 

"Never mind," he reassured me: "I'll find another 
way." 

That way he found when Hoover came to Warsaw. I 
was then about to visit Pinsk, and he requested me to 
postpone it for a day or two. 

"I am giving a state dinner for ^Ir. Hoover at my offi- 
cial residence," said he, "I want you to come to that and 
let the doubters see how you will be one of the Premier's 
most honoured guests." 

That dinner was a gorgeous affair. Everybody of po- 
litical, financial, and social importance was there ; the rep- 
resentatives of the old aristocracy, the makers of the new 



378 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

republic. The table was a sort of squared horseshoe, its 
head the outside centre of the crosspiece, its foot the inside 
centre. Paderewski had personally arranged the seat- 
ing: on his right sat Gibson, at his left Jadwin; Mme. 
Paderewska was at the table's head; Hoover sat at her 
left; General Pilsudski, as Chief-of-State, sat at her right; 
and at his right was the place that the Premier had given 
me. 

Few knew at that time of any change in General Pil- 
sudski's attitude toward the Commission. All the guests 
supposed him still firm in his opposition to us. From my 
seat beside him, I saw many inquisitive eyes fixed on us, 
and showing their surprise at my sitting next to him. 
We were conversing intimately and almost incessantly. 
It was evident that everybody was wondering what passed 
between us. 

And what did? 

The terrible Chief-of-State was telling me, quite simply, 
the story of his adventurous life: how he had fought al- 
ways for Polish liberty, how he had suffered imprison- 
ment at Magdeburg. 

"But, even when there seemed no hope for either my 
country or me," he declared, "I never lost my faith. A 
marvellous gypsy palmist had assured me that I was des- 
tined to be dictator of Poland." 

I looked at him in amazement. It seemed incredible 
that this hardened soldier should be speaking seriously. 

"The palmist," he continued, with the simplicity of a 
child, "found that the lines at the base of my right fore- 
finger formed a star. That is a sure sign that the lucky 
bearer is to rise to mastery." 

He held out his hand to me. I could almost hear the 
rustle of excitement among the watching guests to whom, 
of course, his words were inaudible. 

The star was there. Then, inquisitively, I looked at 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 379 

my own right hand, and to my great surprise I also found 
a star! 

"I have the mark as well as you," I laughingly pro- 
claimed, "but the nearest approach I ever made to a dic- 
tatorship was when the British were expected in Constan- 
tinople in 1915, and I was to be in control of the city 
between the departure of the Turks and the British occu- 
pation." 

News of what Pilsudski and I were doing spread rap- 
idly. Many guests unsuccessfully looked for a star in 
their own hands, and then came up to look at the Gen- 
eral's and mine. 

Shoulder to shoulder with me sat this man trained to 
fighting. Opposite to him was Paderewski, with his 
wonderful head, with its fine, high brow, from which 
flowed that magnificent shock of hair, and showing those 
piercing eyes whose expression had puzzled so many, and 
whose whole education had been directed toward the evok- 
ing of harmony. For years, American nuisic lovers had 
listened to this great virtuoso and been entranced by his 
vigorous and yet delicate interpretation of many of the 
most difficult and intricate classics. Now, he was no 
longer living amid clouds of harmonies and etudes, but 
was second only to Pilsudski in the council of this budding 
republic. There sat this sheer genius — this unstarred 
master. He needed no mark on his palm, no divining 
gypsy's prophecy to prove that he would excel in any 
sphere to which he might direct his talent. Twelve or 
fifteen years ago, there was a picture painted of him and 
hung in the Lemberg Gallery: it showed him as Orpheus 
quieting the wild beasts with his Ijtc. It was of this that 
he irresistibly reminded me that night. He had under- 
taken the almost impossible task of reconciling the con- 
tending factions of his native land, and was eliminating 
race hatred itself. From a chance post of vantage, I 



380 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

could not help watching the court he held during the re- 
ception that followed the dinner. It equalled that of Pil- 
sudski. Princes and pohticians vied with each other for 
an opportunity to approach him, and to each he gave, with 
a perfect grace, an absorbed attention. 

Another of his many sides I came to know. Poland's 
financial plight seemed to me, the more I studied it, not 
so desperate as feared. If prompt and decisive help were 
offered, I believed, the Poles would rally and work out 
their own salvation. As it was, the idle people were los- 
ing their self-respect and were drifting toward militarism, 
simply through their inactivity. I thought a plan could 
be devised by which they could be aroused from their leth- 
argy and given a start toward becoming a vigorous, self- 
supporting people. I had great faith in Paderewski who, 
I felt, did not subscribe to the militaristic views of Pil- 
sudski, and I thought there was a good chance for working 
out a plan for the economic salvation of his country. 

In Vilna, I spoke to a number of prominent business 
men, irrespective of religion, in regard to this matter. I 
asked them whether, if America would help to organize 
a great corporation which would endeavour to finance 
Poland, they would be ready to subscribe to some of the 
stock. I was somewhat surprised at their prompt acqui- 
escence. 

"But," I pointed out, "you will probably be expected 
to subscribe in gold. Have you got it?" 

"Oh, yes," they answered. 

Gold in ravished Poland! "Where?" I asked. 

"In the Agrarian Bank." 

I said that I didn't know the institution. 

Then they smilingly explained. The Agrarian Bank 
was a hole in the ground. At the outbreak of the World 
War these thrifty Poles had buried their gold, hence, 
these men of Vilna were ready to subscribe generously. 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 381 

When I returned to Warsaw, I discussed this plan with 
my associate Johnson, who had had business experience, 
and he became enthusiastic about it. I then presented it 
in detail to Paderewski, and his only criticism was that the 
Poles would want a majority of the stock at once. I told 
him that there was not the slightest objection to that, but 
that I could devise a method by which they could eventu- 
ally secure all of it, and I doubted if it were wise to take 
too much at first. He then said that there must be an 
American at the head of this corporation, and that he must 
be one that was not connected with Wall Street, but who 
would have the confidence of the entire American com- 
munity. I proposed several names, and we finally agreed 
that Franklin K. Lane was the best man. 

Paderewski asked me to put the full details of this plan 
in a letter to him. I asked Colonel Bryant, who was an 
expert stenographer, whether he would be willing to for- 
get his military rank for a short time and revert to his 
former activities by acting as my secretary. He readily 
assented, and to escape the constant interruptions at our 
headquarters, we automobiled five miles outside of War- 
saw, gave the chauffeur a package of cigarettes and told 
him to disappear ; and there on the highway, I dictated in 
an American automobile to an American colonel a letter 
which will be found in the Appendix. 

I handed this letter to Paderewski, and stressed my 
views that the mere announcement of such a corporation 
being contemplated would more than double the value of 
the mark at once. Paderewski thought for a minute and 
then said : 

"Mr. Morgenthau, that is absolutely true, and I am 
afraid that that is going to prevent our adopting the 
scheme." 

I was extremely puzzled, and was dumbfounded as he 
continued : 



382 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

"We cannot afford to have our marks rise too rapidly. 
We have sold too many at this low price, and it would 
bankrupt us to redeem them at the higher value which this 
scheme would give them. We must find some way of 
disregarding the present value of the mark, and start a 
new currency system." 

He had evidently given this some thought, because he 
asked me how long it would take in America to prepare 
new plates and print for them a new currency, and he told 
me that they would have piastres and pounds. I said I 
thought one of the banknote companies could do it in 
three months, perhaps less. Finally, he said to me: 

"Don't speak to any one about this plan, because I don't 
want any one to know that the suggestion comes from you 
until it is put into effect." 

Two days later, when I met him again, he pulled out my 
letter and said : 

"Here I am carrying your letter, and am still giving 
attention to your scheme." 

I still think that a corporation of that kind would have 
put Poland on her feet. 

The time now approached for our Commission's de- 
parture. Our investigations were ended, our work was 
done. We considered our final decision. 

There was no question whatever but that the Jews had 
suffered; there had been shocking outrages of at least a 
sporadic character resulting in many deaths, and still 
more woundings and robberies, and there was a general 
disposition, not to say plot, of long standing, the purpose 
of which was to make the Jews uncomfortable in many 
ways: there was a deliberate conspiracy to boycott them 
economically and socially. Yet there was also no ques- 
tion but that some of the Jewish leaders had exaggerated 
these evils. 

There, too, were malevolent, self-seeking mischief- 



MY MISSION TO POLAND 383 

makers both in the Jewish and PoHsh press and among 
the pohticians of every stripe. Jews and non-Jews ahke 
started out with the presumption that there could be no 
reconcihation. Our Commission had to deal with people, 
most of whom could not conceive of the possibility of dis- 
interested regard for their welfare. Their experiences 
with the Russian courts had taught them always to over- 
state the facts and when one realizes that there is a conflict 
of testimony, and in most of them perjury is committed, 
it made us quite patient when we found them just a little 
less truthful than our American litigants. 

We found that, among the Jews, there was a thought- 
ful, ambitious minority, who, sincere in their original 
motives, intensified the trouble by believing that its solu- 
tion lay only in official recognition of the Jew as a separate 
nationality. They had seized on Zionism as a means to 
establish the Jewish nation. To them, Zionism was na- 
tional, not religious; when questioned, they admitted that 
it was a name with which to capture the imagination of 
their brothers whose tradition bade them pray thrice daily 
for their return to the Holy Land. 

Pilsudski, in a moment of diplomatic aberration, had 
said that the Jews made a serious error in forcing Article 
93 ; quoting that utterance, these Nationalists now asserted 
that neither the PoHsh Government, nor the Roumanian 
for that matter, ever would carry out the spirit of the 
Treaty concessions, and so they aimed at nothing short of 
an autonomous government and a place in the family of 
nations. Meanwhile, they wanted to join the Polish na- 
tion in a federation having a joint parhament where both 
Yiddish and PoHsh should be spoken : their favourite way 
of expressing it was to say that they wanted something 
like Switzerland where French, German, and Itahan can- 
tons work together in harmony. 

Unfortunately, they disregarded the facts in the case. 



384 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

In Switzerland, generally speaking, the citizens of French 
language live in one section, those of German language in 
another, and so on, whereas these aspiring Nationals, of 
course, wanted the Jews to continue scattered throughout 
Poland. They wanted this, and yet wanted them to have 
a percentage of representation in Parliament equal to 
their percentage in the entire PoHsh nation! Finally, 
they took no account of the desires of the Orthodox Jews, 
who form about 80 per cent, of their number, who were 
content to remain in Poland and suffer for their religion if 
necessary, and whom the Pohsh politicians were already 
coddling and beginning to organize poHtically as a vote 
against the Nationalist-Zionists. 

The leaders of these NationaHst-Zionists were capable 
and adroit, but they were like walking delegates in the 
labour unions, who had to continue to agitate in order to 
maintain their leadership, and their advocacy of a state- 
within-the-state was naturally resented by all. It was 
quite evident that one of the deep and obscure causes of 
the Jewish trouble in Poland was this Nationalist-Zionist 
leadership that exploited the Old Testament prophecies 
to capture converts to the Nationalist scheme. 

Here, then, was Zionism in action. We had seen it at 
first hand in Poland. I returned home fearful that, ow- 
ing to the extensive propaganda of the Zionists, the 
American people might obtain the erroneous impression 
that a vast majority of the Jews — and not, as it really 
was, only a portion of the 150,000 Zionists in the United 
States — had ceased considering Judaism as a religion and 
were in danger of conversion to Nationalism. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ZIONISM A SURRENDER, NOT A SOLUTION^ 

ZIONIS^M is the most stupendous fallacy in Jew- 
ish history. I assert that it is wrong in principle 
and impossible of realization; that it is unsound 
in its economics, fantastical in its politics, and sterile in its 
spiritual ideals. Where it is not pathetically visionary, 
it is a cruel playing with the hopes of a people blindly 
seeking their way out of age-long miseries. These are 
bold and sweeping assertions, but in this chapter I shall 
undertake to make them good. 

The very fervour of my feeling for the oppressed of 
every race and every land, especially for the Jews, those 
of my own blood and faith, to whom I am bound by every 
tender tie, impels me to fight with all the greater force 
against this scheme, which my intelligence tells me can 
only lead them deeper into the mire of the past, while it 
professes to be leading them to the heights. 

Zionism is a surrender, not a solution. It is a retrogres- 
sion into the blackest error, and not progress toward the 
light. I will go further, and say that it is a betrayal; it 
is an eastern European proposal, fathered in this country 
by American Jews, which, if it were to succeed, would 
cost the Jews of America most that they have gained of 
Hberty, equality,, and fraternity. 

I claim to speak with knowledge on this subject. I 
have had occasion to know the Jew intimately in all the 
lands where he dwells in numbers, and to study his prob- 

1 This chapter was written in June, 1921, and most of it was published in the 
World's Work for July, 1921. 

385 



386 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

lems on his own ground, with the intensity and sympathy 
which were required by my duty to help in each place to 
formulate the plans for his immediate assistance. I was 
born among the Jews of Germany, and by natural associ- 
ation with German Jews in New York, and by repeated 
visits to Germany, am familiar with their life and prob- 
lems. As an American of fifty-five years' residence, as a 
director of the Educational Alliance and of Mt. Sinai 
Hospital, as president of the Bronx House and the Free 
Synagogue for more than ten years, and as one who has 
travelled on speaking tours from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific and from Canada to New Orleans on behalf of the 
American Jewish Relief Committee, I became thoroughly 
famihar with the American Jews. As American Ambas- 
sador to Turkey, I came into daily official contact with the 
Jews from all parts of the Near East, not only the Jews 
of Turkey and of the Turkish Protectorate in Palestine 
itself, but also the Jews of Egypt, Asia Elinor, Greece, 
Roumania, and Bulgaria, to say nothing of the accredited 
representatives of the Zionist Party in Constantinople. 
As the head of President Wilson's Commission, which was 
sent to investigate the alleged pogroms of the Jews of 
Poland following the Armistice in 1919, I spent several 
months on the ground in Poland and Galicia, and talked 
with thousands of Jews in every walk of life in that great- 
est centre of Jewish population in the world. They told 
me their troubles; the indignities and the perils they en- 
dured; the hatred of their neighbours because of their re- 
ligion; the deliberate efforts that were being made to stifle 
their economic life; the political discriminations to which 
they were subjected; and the social barriers which did not 
permit them to enjoy a full life as members of their com- 
munity. 

I speak as a Jew. I speak with fullest sympathy for 
the Jew everywhere. I have seen him in his povert}^ — 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 387 

despised, hated, spat upon, beaten, murdered. My blood 
boils with his at the thought of the indignities and outrages 
to which he is subjected. I, too, would find for him, for 
me, the way out of this morass of poverty, hatred, political 
inequality, and social discrimination. 

But is Zionism that way? I assert emphatically that 
it is not. I deny it, not merely from an intellectual re- 
coil from the fallacy of its reasoning, but from my very ex- 
perience of life: as a seeker after religious truth, as a 
practical business man, as an active participant in politics, 
as one who has had experience in international affairs, and 
as a Jew who has at heart the best interests of his co- 
religionists. 

First, let me trace briefly the origins of Zionism. I 
shall not attempt to give a complete resume of these ori- 
gins, but shall sketch only a broad picture of the facts. 

Zionism is based upon a literal acceptance of the prom- 
ises made to the Jews by their prophets in the Old Testa- 
ment, that Zion should be restored to them, and that they 
should resume their once glorious place as a peculiar peo- 
ple, singled out by God for His especial favour, exercising 
dominion over their neighbours in His name, and enjoying 
all the freedom and blessings of a race under the unique 
protection of the Almighty. Of course, the prophets 
meant these things symbolically, and were dealing only 
with the spiritual life. They did not mean earthly power 
or materialistic blessings. But most Jews accepted them 
in the physical sense; and they fed upon this glowing 
dream of earthly grandeur as a relief from the sordid 
realities of the daily life which they were compelled to 
lead. 

Zionism arose out of the miseries of the Jews. It was 
offered as a remedy, a release, a plan of action which 
would provide a road to happiness. This is the secret of 
its hold upon its adherents. The promises which it offers 



388 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

are so dazzling that Jews everywhere have rushed to em- 
brace its faith without stopping to examine them closely 
or to calculate whether they can be made good. 

Zionism is not a new idea, but it gained a fresh impetus 
following the outbreak of wholesale massacres in Russia 
beginning with Kiev and Kishineff , and all through that 
ghastly trail of bloodshed following the recrudescence of 
Anti-Semitism. The Jews, in their agony and peril, 
sought afresh for a path toward safety. Zionism was 
then restated as the remedy. Theodore Herzl gained 
new power as its fiery apostle, and Jews the world over 
embraced the doctrine as a drowning man grasps at a 
straw. This largely accounts for the present intense agi- 
tation of the Zionists. 

Let me now define Zionism more fully. To the aver- 
age Jew, unread in other histories than his own, ignorant 
of the great currents of world progress in science, indus- 
try, and the art of government, it is a blind and simple 
faith in the imminence of realization of the dream I have 
just described of the reerection of Zion as an earthly 
Kingdom. By those intellectual leaders of Jewish 
thought who have embraced this fallacy of a panacea, 
Zionism is defined in more subtle and in more plausibly 
rational terms. There are, first, those intellectual Jews 
who conceive of "Zion" (that is, Jerusalem restored to 
the Jews) as being a physical symbol of spiritual leader- 
ship, lifted up before their eyes and inspiring them all to 
a common purpose; as a demonstration of Hebraic civil- 
ization; a centre from which should proceed instruction 
and exhortation to the Jews of all the world. 

This analogy, however, is not complete. For these 
leaders conceive the Jews to be, not merely a religious 
congregation, but, besides, a nation. They think that 
not merely should spiritual power be centralized in 
Zion, but temporal power as well. In their view, the dis- 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 389 

crimination against Jews in other countries will greatly 
diminish, once there is erected a Jewish state in Palestine. 

This nation is to be, in their theory, not only the seat of 
a religion and the fostering home of distinctive racial cul- 
ture. It is to be, as well, an actual political entity, with 
territorial boundaries and a capital city, maintaining a 
temporal government with a ruler accrediting ambassa- 
dors to foreign courts and capitals, dealing with other 
governments on an equality as a sovereign state, and seek- 
ing to use the familiar instruments of diplomatic pressure 
to redress the wrongs of its citizens who happen to reside 
under the jurisdiction of "foreign" nations. 

I say that this is the programme of the Zionists: per- 
haps I should say was. It is true that they have, for the 
moment, altered the structure of their dream, to accept the 
compromise held out to them by the Balfour Declaration. 
They have stepped down from their plans for a sovereign 
Jewish state in Palestine: they now accept the ideal of a 
"National Home for the Jewish People" — to quote the 
words of that declaration. This is, however, only a tem- 
porary compromise — a truce. Nothing short of the full 
glory of their Zion will long content the ambitious apostles 
of Zionism. 

It is worth while at this point to digress for a moment 
from my main argument, to point out that the Balfour 
Declaration is itself not even a compromise. It is a 
shrewd and adroit delusion. 

The Balfour Declaration is: "His Majesty's Govern- 
ment views with favour the establishment in Palestine of 
a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly 
understood that nothing shall be done which may preju- 
dice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish 
communities in Palestine, nor the rights and political 
status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." 

The plain sense of these plain words has been woefully 



390 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

misunderstood by some of the Zionist leaders, and wil- 
fully distorted by others. They contain no promise of a 
Jewish state : they offer no recognition of a Jewish nation. 
They do, it is true, apply the obscure but pleasant name 
of "Jewish Home Land" to the land which the Declaration 
then accurately defines by its political name as "Pales- 
tine"; but it guarantees to the Jews in their Home Land 
only those familiar assurances of security of person and 
property which are the common possessions of British 
subjects the world over. 

I have been astonished to find that such an intelligent 
body of American Jews as the Central Conference of 
American Rabbis should have fallen into a grievous mis- 
understanding of the purport of the Balfour Declaration. 
In a resolution adopted by them, they assert that the Dec- 
laration says: "Palestine is to be a national home land for 
the Jewish people." ISTot at all! The actual words of 
the Declaration (I quote from the official text) are: "His 
Majesty's Government views with favour the estabhsh- 
ment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish peo- 
ple." These two phrases sound alike, but they are really 
very different. I can make this obvious by an analogy. 
When I first read the Balfour Declaration I was making 
my home in the Plaza Hotel. Therefore I could say with 
truth: "My home is in the Plaza Hotel." I could not say 
with truth: "The Plaza Hotel is my home." If it were 
"my home," I would have the freedom of the whole prem- 
ises, and could occupy any room in the house with impu- 
nity. Quite obviously, however, I could not occupy the 
rooms of any other of the guests of the hotel whose leases 
long antedated mine. 

These men would gladly entertain me as a visitor, but 
how they would resent and legally fight so unjustifiable 
an attempt as my trying forcibly to enter their premises 
and displace them and make their quarters my home. 




RABBI lU BENSTEIX 
A leader of the Jewish comiminity in Vihia, who took a very 
prominent part in the incidents that arose when the Poles took 
possession of the city. 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 391 

This is exactly the differentiation in meaning between 
the Balfour Declaration and the claims of those Zionists 
who profess to see in it British authority for claiming 
Palestine as the seat of a Jewish nation. The Balfour 
Declaration very carefully says: "The British Govern- 
ment favours the establishment of a home land for the 
Jewish people in Palestine/' But this does not say that 
the Jews shall have the right to dispossess, or to trespass 
upon the property of those far more numerous Arab ten- 
ants whose right to their share in it is as good as that of the 
Jews and, in most cases, of much longer standing. 

Palestine is a country already populated, and the Brit- 
ish Government has no intention of evicting the Arab 
owners of the soil in favour of the Jews. Nor, I may add 
in passing, have the Arab owners any intention of selling 
their holdings to the Jews, for they are fully aware of the 
Zionist programme, are very resentful of it, and intend to 
use every means at their command to frustrate it. 

In February, 1921, this obvious meaning of the Balfour 
Declaration was made officially explicit, when the com- 
plete text of the mandate for Palestine was first made 
public. After reiterating in the preamble the language 
which I have above quoted, this official transaction of the 
Council of the League of Nations proceeds to enumerate 
the specific terms under which Palestine shall be governed 
as a mandatary of Great Britain. The very first article 
of this mandate explodes completely the theory that the 
Allied Powers had any idea of setting up a Jewish nation. 
It reads: "His Britannic Majesty shall have the power to 
exercise as mandatory all the powers inherent in the gov- 
ernment of a sovereign state save as they may be limited 
by the terms of the present mandate." In other words, 
not a government of Jews over a Jewish nation, but His 
Britannic Majesty is declared to be the repository of "the 
powers inherent in a sovereign state." 



392 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

To be sure, these powers are limited by certain specific 
terms enumerated in the mandate. Space does not per- 
mit a quotation of them in full, but I would advise those 
interested to secure a copy of the mandate and to study it 
in the light of the claim of some Zionists that the Balfour 
Declaration recognizes a Jewish State. These so-called 
"Hmitations" do not really limit the sovereign power of 
His Britannic Majesty. They are not limitations; they 
are statements of the direction in which the British as 
mandataries pledge themselves to pay especial attention 
to the interests of the Jews as a part of the body of the 
citizens of Palestine. Except for these expressions of 
benevolent intention specifically toward the Jews, every 
one of the twenty-seven articles in the declaration is just 
as applicable to every other citizen of Palestine, whether 
Jew or Gentile, Mohammedan, Arab, or Christian Syriac. 
They are guaranties of civil hberty, freedom of conscience, 
equality before the law, and the like. 

It was a politic move of the British Government to 
name a Jew as the first governing head of Palestine when 
the British began to function under this mandate. But 
this appointment of Sir Herbert Samuel was only politic, 
it was not political. It has no general significance. 

As I have said, some of the Zionist leaders woefully 
misunderstood the Balfour Declaration. The terms of 
the mandate now leave to them no room for misunder- 
standing. Other Zionist leaders, however, wilfully mis- 
represented it. They knew that it meant what it said, but 
they did not dare to tell their followers what it meant. 
They chose rather to let them think that it was only an- 
other phrasing of their original programme of the erection 
of a Zionistic national sovereign state, or that it would 
lead to it. These misleaders, being more vociferous than 
their more honest colleagues, have had the ear of the great 
mass of Jews throughout the world. This mass now be- 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 393 

lieves that Zionism, as a national ideal, is presently attain- 
able, if, indeed, it is not actually attained already. These 
Zionistie apostles are culpable, in that they have failed to 
undeceive the masses of this error. Instead, they have 
capitahzed this credulous faith, and are collecting funds in 
America and in Europe, ostensibly to finance what they 
call the estabhshment of their dream, although really, as 
I believe, to finance further propaganda for their unattain- 
able ideal. 

Having disposed of the fallacious assumption that Zion- 
ism has been, or is about to be attained, let me now return 
to my main argument, namely, that it never can be at- 
tained, and that it ought not to be attained. 

Let us examine the pretensions of Zionism from three 
essential angles: Is it an economic fallacy? Is it a politi- 
cal fantasy? Is it a spiritual will-o'-the wisp? 

First, its economic aspect. I assert positively that it is 
impossible. Zionists have been working for thirty years 
with fanatical zeal, and backed by millions of money from 
philanthropic Jews of great wealth in France, England, 
Germany, and America ; and the total result of their oper- 
ations, at the outbreak of the World War, was the move- 
ment of ten thousand Jews from other lands to the soil of 
Palestine. In the same period, a million and a half Jews 
have migrated to America. 

The truth is that Palestine cannot support a large popu- 
lation in prosperity. It has a lean and niggard soil. It 
is a land of rocky hills, upon which, for many centuries, a 
hardy people have survived only with difficulty by culti- 
vating a few patches of soil here and there, with the olive, 
the fig, citrus fruits and the grape, or have barely sus- 
tained their flocks upon the sparse native vegetation. The 
streams are few and small, entirely insufficient for the 
great irrigation systems that would be necessary for the 
general cultivation of tlie land. The underground sources 



394 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

of water can be developed only at a prodigious capital ex- 
pense. There are thirteen million Jews in the world: the 
Zionist organization itself claims for Palestine only a 
maximum possible population of five millions. Even this 
claim is on the face of it an extravagant over-estimate. 
After careful study on the spot in Palestine, I prophesy 
that it will not support more than one million additional 
inhabitants. 

Palestine is in area about equal to the state of Massa- 
chusetts; and that New England state, blest (as Pales- 
tine is not) with plentiful water, ample water-powers, 
abundant forestation, and a good soil, supports only four 
million people. This bald comparison, however, does not 
begin to tell the story. Massachusetts is an integral part 
of a tremendously prosperous nation of one hundred mil- 
lion souls. Distributed among forty-eight states, between 
which there are no political boundaries to protect, no 
fences to be maintained, no tariff discrimination, or un- 
favourable exchanges to be considered, she enjoys all the 
advantages of a highly industrialized community, and of 
established commercial intercourse with the rest of the 
most progressive nations in the world. If Massachusetts 
were situated as Palestine is situated, remote from the 
great currents of modern economic life ; without even one 
of those absolutely indispensable prerequisites to commer- 
cial success, namely natural ports; without its network 
of railways, bringing to it cheaply the raw materials for 
its manufactures, and carrying from it cheaply and 
quickly to rich markets its manufactured articles, Massa- 
chusetts would support a population far less than its pres- 
ent numbers. 

This is the condition of Palestine: not only must agri- 
culture be pursued under the greatest possible handicaps 
of soil and water, but it is subject to the direct competi- 
tion of far more favoured lands in the very agricultural 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 395 

products for which it is distinctive. These are the citrus 
fruits, ahnonds, figs and dates, grapes and wine. How 
can little Palestine compete in these products mth Italy, 
France, and Spain, and their north African colonies, 
whose richer soil lies in the direct line of the great march 
of commerce ? 

A great industrial Palestine is equally unthinkable. It 
lacks the raw materials of coal and iron; it lacks the skill 
in technical processes and the experience in the arts; and, 
above all, it is not in the path of modern trade currents. 
What hope is there for Palestine, as an industrial nation, 
in competition with America, Great Britain, and Ger- 
many, with their prodigious resources, their highly organ- 
ized factories, their great mass-production, and their 
superb means of transportation? The notion is pre- 
posterous. 

I claim that the foregoing analysis demolishes the eco- 
nomic foundation of Zionism. 

What of its political foundations? Is Zionism a poHti- 
cal fantasy? I assert most emphatically that it is. The 
present British mandate over Palestine is a recognition, 
by the great powers of the world, of the supreme political 
interest of Great Britain in that region. It was no mere 
accident that it was a British army which captured Jeru- 
salem from the Turks in the late war. The hfe-and- 
death importance of the Suez Canal to the integrity of the 
British Empire has for more than half a century made the 
destiny of Palestine as well as of Egypt a vital concern of 
British statesmanship. So long as the Turk was in con- 
trol, the British had no cause to fear what that impotent 
and backward neighbour might do to interrupt the hfe 
current that flows through this jugular vein connecting 
India with the British Isles. But now that the Turk is in 
process of being dispossessed of sovereignty, and the fu- 
ture disposition of his territories in doubt, British states- 



396 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

men can hold but one opinion concerning either Egypt or 
Palestine, and this opinion is, that no matter what else 
may befall, British influence must be omnipotent on both 
sides of the Suez Canal. It may be politic for them for 
the moment to coddle the aspirations of a numerically neg- 
hgible race like the Jews. But the notion that Great 
Britain would for one instant allow any form of govern- 
ment in Palestine, under any name whatever, that was not, 
in fact, an appanage of the British Crown, and subservient 
to the paramount interests of British world policy, is too 
fantastical for serious refutation. 

I have just said that it may be politic for the British 
Government to coddle the aspirations of the Jews. There 
are, however, profound reasons why this coddling will not 
take the form of granting to them even the name and sur- 
face appearance of a sovereign government ruling Pales- 
tine. In the first place, Britain's hold upon India is by no 
means so secure that the Imperial Government at London 
can afford to trifle with the fanatical sensibilities of the 
millions of Mohammedans in its Indian possessions. Re- 
member that Palestine is as much the Holy Land of the 
Mohammedan as it is the Holy Land of the Jew, or the 
Holy Land of the Christian. His shrines cluster there as 
thickly. They are to him as sacredly endeared. In 1914 
I visited the famous Caves of Machpelah, twenty miles 
from Jerusalem ; and I shall never forget the mutterings of 
discontent that murmured in my ears, nor the threatening 
looks that confronted my eyes, from the lips and faces of 
the devout ^lohammedans whom I there encountered. 
For these authentic tombs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
are as sacred to them, because they are saints of Islam, as 
they are to the most orthodox of my fellow Jews, whose 
direct ancestors they are, not only in the spiritual, but in 
the actual physical sense. To these Mohammedans, my 
presence at the tombs of my ancestors was as much a prof- 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 397 

anation of a jMohammedan Holy Place as if I had laid 
sacrilegious hands upon the sacred relics in the mosque at 
Mecca. To imagine that the British Government will 
sanction a scheme for a political control of Palestine which 
would place in the hands of the Jews the physical guard- 
ianship of these shrines of Islam, is to imagine something 
very foreign to the practical pohtical sense of the most po- 
litically practical race on earth. They know too well how 
deeply they would offend their myriad INIohammedan sub- 
jects to the East. 

Exactly the same political issue of religious fanaticism 
applies to the question of Christian sensibilities. Any one 
who has seen, as in 1914 I saw at Easter-tide, the tens of 
thousands of devout Roman Catholics from Poland, Italy, 
and Spain, and the other tens of thousands of devout 
Greek Catholics from Russia and the East, who yearly 
frequent the shrines of Christianity in Palestine, and who 
thus consummate a lifetime of devotion by a pilgrimage 
undertaken at, to them, staggering expense and physical 
privation; and who has observed, as I have observed, the 
suppressed hatred of them all for both the Jew and the 
INIussulman; and who has noted, further, the bitter jeal- 
ousies between even Protestant and Catholic, between 
Greek Catholic and Roman — such an observer, I say, can 
entertain no illusions that the placing of these sacred 
shrines of Christian tradition in the hands of the Jews 
would be tolerated. The most enlightened Christians 
might endure it, but the great mass of Christian worship- 
pers of Europe would not. They regard the Jew not 
merely as a member of a rival faith, but the man whose an- 
cestors rejected their fellow Jew, the Christ, and crucified 
Him. Their fanaticism is a political fact of gigantic pro- 
portions. A Jewish State in Palestine would inevitably 
arouse their passion. Instead of such a State adding new 
dignity and consideration to the position of the Jew the 



398 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

world over (as the Zionists claim it would do), I am con- 
vinced that it would concentrate, multiply, and give new 
venom to the hatred which he already endures in Poland 
and Russia, the very lands in which most of the Jews now 
dwell, and where their oppressions are the worst. 

The political pretensions of Zionism are fantastic. I 
think the foregoing paragraphs have demonstrated this. 

Is Zionism a spiritual will-o'-the-wisp? I assert with 
all the vigour of my most profound convictions that it is. 
Its professed spiritual aim is the reassertion of the dignity 
and worth of the Jew. It is a mechanism designed to 
restore to him his self-respect, and to secure for him the 
respect of others. The means by which it proposes to ac- 
complish this have been described above. How pitifully 
inadequate these means are has been demonstrated. 

The effort of the Jews to attain their legitimate spir- 
itual ambitions by means of a political mechanism needs 
hardly further to be controverted in the negative, or de- 
structive, sense. I prefer to meet this issue on positive 
and constructive grounds. My answer to the spiritual 
pretensions of Zionism is the positive answer that the solu- 
tion has already been discovered — the way out has been 
found. The courageous Jew, the intellectually honest 
Jew, the forward-looking Jew, the Jew who has been will- 
ing to fight for his rights on the spot where they were in- 
fringed, has won his battle, and has found all the glorious 
freedom which Zionism so impractically describes. The 
brave Jews of England did not surrender their cause. 
They did not seek a moral opiate in an Oriental pipe- 
dream of retreat to a cloud-land Zion pictured by fancy 
on the arid hills of Palestine. They stayed in England; 
they fought on English soil for their rights as men. Their 
courage enlisted the admiration of the nobler spirits 
among the English, and it allied to them such Britons 
as Macaulay and George Bentinck, whose splendid elo- 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 399 

quence and political acumen assisted in the repeal of the 
Jewish Disabilities in 1858. This epochal legislation gave 
the Jews every right enjoyed in Britain by the Christians. 
It made possible the splendid political career of Beacons- 
field (for many years Prime Minister of Great Britain), 
and the brilliant experience of Sir Rufus Isaacs (now 
Earl Reading) who has progressed through the highest 
political honours of the nation as Lord Chief Justice, Am- 
bassador to America, and Viceroy of India. 

Do not forget that in this victorious struggle the Jew 
made no compromise whatever with his conscience. He 
did not abandon his racial, rehgious, or cultural heritage. 
The courageous and wise Jews of France and Italy have 
fought this same battle to this same victorious conclusion. 
But this book will be read chiefly by Americans: such 
influence as it may wield will be particularly upon Ameri- 
can minds. Need I elaborate the argument in its Ameri- 
can setting? The facts lie upon the surface for the dullest 
eyes to see them. Nowhere in the world has so glorious 
an opportunity been offered to the Jew. Generous 
America has throwTi wide the doors of opportunity to him. 
The Jew possesses no talents of the mind or spirit that 
cannot find here a free field for their most complete ex- 
pression. 

Does he seek political office ? Jews in this country have 
been or are members of every legislature, including the 
Senate of the United States; ambassadors representing 
the person of the President at foreign courts; officers of 
the judiciary in every grade from justice of the peace to 
justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Does he seek freedom of conscience? He may freely 
choose his mode of worship, from the strictest of orthodox 
tabernacles to the most Hberal of free synagogues. 

Does he seek a field for business talent? The evidence 
of opportunity in this direction is so overwhelming that 



400 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

it need not here be wearyingly recapitulated. The prog- 
ress of Adolph S. Ochs from a printer's devil in Knox- 
ville, Tenn., fifty years ago, to owner of the greatest news- 
paper in the greatest city in the world, is characteristic of 
dozens of hke successful Jewish careers in this country; 
and it is emblematic of hundreds of thousands of Jewish 
careers less spectacular but equally momentous in their 
own degree. 

Does he seek social position? Here, indeed, his path 
is made more difficult. But the social barriers are not in- 
surmountable. Where they seem so, calm judgment will 
reveal that the social environment where this irrational 
prejudice exists is not worthy of the entrance of the Jew. 
Leave the intolerant to associate with their own kind. The 
Jew who has raised himself to the highest level will have 
put himself beyond the reach of prejudice, and he will find 
himself welcomed in the highest Christian circles. 

The enlightened Jews of America have found the true 
road to Zion. To them Zion is no mere political mechan- 
ism existing by the political sufferance of the greater 
Powers. It is not defined by geographical boundaries, 
circumscribing an arid plot of ground which their ancestors 
of two thousand years ago conquered from its aboriginal 
inhabitants and occupied for a brief, though glorious, pe- 
riod before they, in turn, were driven onward by a new 
conqueror. To them, Zion is a region of the soul. To 
them, it is an inner light, set upon the hill of personal con- 
sciousness, inspiring them as individuals to fight, each for 
himself, the battle of life where he meets it ; demanding in 
virtue of his own worth the respect of those about him; 
winning through to the dignity and position to which his 
native gifts and his self -developed character entitle him. 
This is the only true Zion. All other definitions of it are 
unreal. 

The proudest boast of all these men, and my proudest 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 401 

boast, is: "I am an American." None of us would deny 
our race or faith. We are Jews by blood. We are Jews, 
though of various sects, by religion. But as for me (and 
here I am sure I speak for a vast body of Jews in the 
United States), if I were pressed to define myself by any 
single appellation, I would unhesitatingly select the one 
word American. Neither I nor the humblest worshipper 
in the most orthodox congregation can hope for anything 
from Zionism that is not already ours in virtue of our par- 
ticipation in the freedom of America. And neither of us 
need make the smallest compromise with any conviction 
that we hold dear. I have found it more convenient (as 
well as quite within the approval of what I regard as my 
somewhat more enlightened conscience) to cast off the 
other symbols of the Hebraic faith, such as the Kosher 
observances, the untouched beard, and the distinctive 
dress; but there are thousands of Russian Jews in the 
United States to-day who retain these excrescences of 
antiquity, with only a small inconvenience that is certainly 
very far short of persecution. From observation and ex- 
perience I know full well that these same orthodox 
devotees will themselves become enlightened — if not they, 
then certainly their children — and will perceive, as I and 
others have perceived, that the ^losaic admonitions were 
purely temporal devices, expedient truly for the age in 
which they were promulgated, useful until modern san- 
itation and modern education did their work, but now 
become empty of those first values. 

Here hes the crux of my affirmative argument against 
Zionism. We anti-Zionist Jews of America have found 
that the spiritual life, after whatever formula of faith, in 
modern times can be most fully enjoyed by those people 
who accept the beneficent progress which the world at 
large has made in science, industry, and the art of govern- 
ment. We have learned the folly of persisting in the 



402 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

sanitary regulations taught by Moses, in this age when all 
civilized peoples have the benefit of the more advanced 
sanitary knowledge of Lister, Pasteur, Metchnikoff, and 
Flexner. We have learned the folly of persisting in a 
distinctive style of clothing, beard, and locks (imposed 
upon the Jews extraneously as a badge of slavery and op- 
pression), and of ascribing a spiritual significance to such 
a costume in this age when saints like Montefiore and 
Baron Edmond de Rathschild, the great patrons of Pales- 
tine, have found sanctity not incompatible with the ordi- 
nary dress of those about them. We have come to see that 
the worship of the God of Israel, the acceptable obedience 
to His will, is not contingent upon the clothes one wears, 
upon the meat one eats. His kingdom is the soul of man. 
In that boundless temple He receives the priceless sac- 
rifices of the true behever. That time and place and mode 
are most acceptable to Him in which the human spirit 
brings its richest offerings. 

It follows, then, that the Jew everywhere (in Poland 
and Russia, as well as in France and America) can ac- 
ceptably serve the God of his fathers and still enter fully 
into the life about him. We in America refuse to set 
ourselves apart in a voluntary ghetto for the sake of old 
traditional observances. 

I have often used a figure of speech — it was brought to 
my mind by meeting the rug-makers in Turkey — as 
follows: The Jew has been content, in most lands and 
down the ages, to be tlie fringe of the carpet, the loose end 
over which every foot has stumbled, where every heel has 
left its injuring impression on the disconnected individual 
strands. What the Jew should do is, to become a part of 
the pattern of the carpet itself: weave himself into the 
very warp and woof of the main fabric of humanity ; and 
gain the strength which comes from a coordinated and 
orderly relation to the other strands of human society. 



ZIONISM A SURRENDER 403 

His peculiar beauties (his peculiar talents), which in the 
fringe are soiled and hidden, take on new value when they 
become part of the main carpet ; and they find their glory 
in lending to the pattern a unique splendour and a special 
lustre. 

I, for one, will not forego this vision of the destiny of the 
Jews. I do not presume to say to my co-religionists of 
Europe that they shall accept my programme. But 
neither do I intend to allow them to impose their pro- 
gramme upon me. They may continue, if they will, a 
practice of our common faith which invites martyrdom, 
and v/hich makes the continuance of oppression a cer- 
tainty. I have found a better way (and when I say I, 
it is to speak collectively as one of a great body of Amer- 
ican Jews of like mind). In the foregoing pages I have 
given my reasons for opposing Zionism. They make 
plain why I asserted at the beginning of this chapter that 
Zionism is not a solution; that it is a surrender. It looks 
backward, and not forward. It would practically place in 
the hands of a few men, steeped in a foreign tradition, the 
power to turn back the hands of time upon all which I and 
my predecessors of the same convictions have won for 
ourselves here in America. We have fought our way 
through to liberty, equality, and fraternity. We have 
found rest for our souls. No one shall rob us of these 
gains. We enjoy in America exactly the spiritual liberty, 
the financial success, and the social position which we have 
earned. Any Jew in America who wishes to be a saint of 
Zion has only to practice the cultivation of his spiritual 
gifts — there is none to hinder him. Any Jew in Amer- 
ica who seeks material reward has only to cultivate the 
powers of his mind and character — there are no barriers 
between him and achievement. Any Jew in America 
who yearns for social position has only to cultivate his 
manners — there are no insurmountable discriminations 



404 ALL IN A LIFE-TIME 

here against true gentlemen. The Jews of France have 
found France to be their Zion. The Jews of England 
have found England to be their Zion. We Jews of 
America have found America to be our Zion. Therefore, 
I refuse to allow myself to be called a Zionist. I am an 
American. 



APPENDIX 



REPORT OF THE MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES 

TO POLAND 



American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 

Mission to Poland. 

Paris, October 3, 1919. 
To the American commission to negotiate peace. 

Gentlemen: 1. A mission, consisting of Mr. Henry Morgenthau, 
Brig. Gen. Edgar Jadwin, and Mr. Homer H. Johnson, was appointed 
by the American commission to negotiate peace to investigate Jewish 
matters in Poland. The appointment of such a mission had pre- 
viously been requested by Mr. Paderewski, president of the council of 
ministers of the Republic of Poland. On June 30, 1919, Secretary 
Lansing wrote to this mission: 

It is desired that the mission make careful inquiry into all matters affecting 
the relations between tlie Jewish and non-Jewish elements in Poland. This 
will, of course, involve the investigation of the various massacres, pogroms, 
and other excesses alleged to have taken phice, the economic boycott, and 
other methods of discrimination against the Jewisli race. The establishment 
of the truth in regard to these matters is not, however, an end in itself. It is 
merely for the purpose of seeking to discover the reason lying behind such 
excesses and discriminations with a view to finding a possible remedy. The 
American Government, as you know, is inspired by a friendly desire to 
render service to all elements in the new Poland — Christians and Jews alike. 
I am convinced that any measures that may be taken to ameliorate the 
conditions of the Jews will also benefit the rest of the population and that, 
conversely, anything done for the community benefit of Poland as a whole 
will be of advantage to the Jewish race. I am sure that the members of 
your mission are approaching the subject in the right spirit, free from 
prejudice one way or the other, and filled with a desire to discover the truth 
and evolve some constructive measures to improve the situation which gives 
concern to all the friends of Poland. 

2. The mission reached Warsaw on July 13, 1919, and remained in 
Poland until September 13, 1919. All the places where the principal 
excesses had occurred were visited. In addition thereto the mission 
also studied the economic and social conditions in such places as 
Lodz, Krakau, Grodno, Kalisch, Posen, Cholm, Lublin, and Stanis- 
lawow. But automobiling over 2,500 miles through Russian, Austrian, 

407 



408 APPENDIX 

and German Poland, the mission also came into immediate contact 
with the inhabitants of the small towns and villages. In order 
properly to appreciate the present cultural and social conditions, the 
mission also visited educational institutions, libraries, hospitals, 
museums, art galleries, orphan asylums, and prisons. 

3. Investigations of the excesses were made mostly in the presence 
of representatives of the Polish Government and of the Jewish com- 
munities. There were also present in many cases military and civil 
officials and, wherever possible, officials in command at the time the 
excesses occurred were conferred with and interrogated. In this 
work the Polish authorities and the American Minister to Poland, 
Mr. Hughes Gibson, lent the mission every facility. Deputations of 
all kinds of organizations were received and interviewed. A large 
number of public meetings and gatherings were attended, and the 
mission endeavoured to obtain a correct impression of what had oc- 
curred, of the present mental state of the public, and of the attitude 
of the various factions toward one another. 

4. The Jews first entered Poland in large numbers during the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when they migrated from Germany 
and other countries as the result of severe persecutions. Their lan- 
guage was German, which subsequently developed into a Hebrew- 
German dialect, or Yiddish. As prior to this immigration only two 
classes or estates had existed in Poland (the owners and the tillers 
of the soil), the Jewish immigrant became the pioneer of trade and 
finance, settling in the towns and villages. As time went on it became 
generally known throughout Europe that Poland was a place of 
refuge for the Jews, and their numbers were augmented as a result 
of persecutions in western Europe. Still more recently, as a result 
of the expulsion of the Jews from Russia, on account of the enforce- 
ment of the pale of settlement, and of the May laws of 1882, their 
number was further increased. 

5. Notwithstanding the fact that Poland has been a place of 
refuge for the Jews, there have been anti-Jewish movements at 
various times. The present anti-Semitic feeling took a definite polit- 
ical form after the Russian revolution of 1905. This feeling reached 
an intense stage in 1912, when the Polish National Democratic Party 
nominated an anti-Semite to represent Warsaw in the Russian Duma 
and the Jews cast their vote for a Polish Socialist and carried the 
election. The National Democratic Party then commenced a vigorous 



APPENDIX 409 

anti-Semitic campaign. During the German occupation this campaign 
was temporarily reduced. At the end of the Great War the chaotic 
and unnatural state of affairs in which Poland found itself gave good 
ground for a condition of social unrest, which, together with the 
world-stimulated tendency toward national self-determination, ac- 
centuated the feeling between Jewish and non-Jewish elements. The 
chauvinistic reaction created by the sudden acquisition of a long- 
coveted freedom ripened the public mind for anti-Semitic or anti- 
alien sentiment, which was strongly agitated by the press and by 
politicians. This finally encouraged physical manifestations of vio- 
lent outcroppings of an unbalanced social condition. 

6. WTien, in November, 1918, the Austrian and German armies of 
occupation left Poland there was no firm government until the arrival 
of Gen. Pilsudski, who had escaped from a German prison, and it 
was during this period, before the Polish Republic came into being, 
that the first of the excesses took place. (The mission has purposely 
avoided the use of the word "pogrom," as the word is applied to 
everything from petty outrages to premeditated and carefully organ- 
ized massacres. No fixed definition is generally understood.) There 
were eight principal excesses, which are here described in chronolog- 
ical order. 

(1) Kielce, November 11, 1918. 
Shortly after the evacuation of the Austrian troops from Kielce 
the Jews of this city secured permission from the local authorities to 
hold a meeting in the Polski Theatre. The purpose of this meeting 
was to discuss Jewish national aspirations. It began shortly before 2 
o'clock and filled the theatre to overflowing. During the afternoon 
a small crowd of Polish civilians, largely composed of students, 
gathered outside of the theatre. At 6.30 p. m. the meeting began to 
break up, and when only about 300 people remained in the theatre, 
some militiamen entered and began to search for arms. A short 
while thereafter, and while the militiamen were still in the building, 
a crowd of civilians and some soldiers came into the auditorium and 
drove the Jews toward the stairs. On the stairs there was a double 
line of men armed with clubs and bayonets, who beat the Jews as they 
left the building. After the Jews reached the street they were again 
beaten by a mob outside. As a result of this attack four Jews were 
killed and a large number wounded. A number of civilians have been 
indicted for participation in this excess, but have not as yet been 
brought to trial. 



410 APPENDIX 

(2,) Lemberg, November 21-23, 1918. 

On October 30, 1918, when the Austrian Empire collapsed, the 
Ukrainian troops, formerly in the Austrian service, assumed control 
of the town. A few hundred Polish boys, combined with numerous 
volunteers of doubtful character, recaptured about half the city and 
held it until the arrival of Polish reinforcements on November 21. 
The Jewish population declared themselves neutral, but the fact that 
the Jewish quarter lay within the section occupied by the Ukrainians, 
and that the Jews had organized their own militia, and further, the 
rumour that some of the Jewish population had fired upon the soldiery, 
stimulated amongst the Polish volunteers an anti-Semitic bias that 
readily communicated itself to the relieving troops. The situation 
was further complicated by the presence of some 15,000 uniformed 
deserters and numerous criminals released by the Ukrainians from 
local jails, who were ready to join in any disorder, particularly if, 
as in the case of wholesale pillage, they might profit thereby. 

Upon the final departure of the Ukrainians, these disreputable 
elements plundered to the extent of many millions of crowns the 
dwellings and stores in the Jewish quarter, and did not hesitate at 
murder when they met with resistance. During the ensuing disorders, 
which prevailed on November 21, 22, and 23, 64 Jews were killed 
and a large amount of property destroyed. Thirty-eight houses 
were set on fire, and owing to the paralysis of the fire department, 
were completely gutted. The Synagogue was also burned, and large 
numbers of the sacred scrolls of the law were destroyed. The 
repression of the disorders was rendered more difficult by the prevail- 
ing lack of discipline among the newly organized Polish troops, and 
by a certain hesitation among the junior officers to apply stern 
punitive measures. When officers' patrols under experienced leaders 
were finally organized on November 23, robbery and violence ceased. 

As early as December 24, 1918, the Polish Government, through 
the ministry of justice, began a strict investigation of the events of 
November 21 and 23. A special commission, headed by a justice 
of the supreme court, sat in Lemberg for about two months, and 
rendered an extensive formal report which has been furnished this 
mission. In spite of the crowded dockets of the local courts, where 
over 7,000 cases are now pending, 164 persons, 10 of them Jews, 
have been tried for complicity in the November disorders, and numer- 
ous similar cases await disposal. Forty-four persons are under 
sentences ranging from 10 days to 18 months. Aside from the civil 
courts, the local court-martial has sentenced military persons to 



APPENDIX 411 

confinement for as long as three years for lawlessness during the 
period in question. This mission is advised that on the basis of official 
investigations the Government has begun the payment of claims for 
damages resulting from these events. 

(3) Pinsk, April 5, 1919. 
Late in the afternoon of April 5, 1919, a month or more after the 
Polish occupation of Pinsk, some 75 Jews of both sexes, with the 
official permission of the town commander, gathered in the assembly 
hall at the People's House, in the Kupiecka Street, to discuss the 
distribution of relief sent by the American joint distribution com- 
mittee. As the meeting was about to adjourn, it was interrupted by 
a band of soldiers, who arrested and searched the whole assembly, 
and, after robbing the prisoners, marched them at a rapid pace to 
gendarmerie headquarters. Thence the prisoners were conducted to 
the market place and lined up against the wall of the cathedral. 
With no light except the lamps of a military automobile the six 
women in the crowd, and about 25 men, were separated from the 
mass, and the remainder, 35 in number, were shot with scant delibera- 
tion and no trial whatever. Early the next morning 3 wounded 
victims were shot in cold blood when it was found that they were 
still alive. 

The women and other reprieved prisoners were confined in the city 
jail until the following Thursday. The women were stripped and 
beaten by the prison guards so severely that several of them were 
bed-ridden for weeks thereafter, and the men were subjected to 
similar maltreatment. 

It has been asserted officially by the Polish authorities, that there 
was reason to suspect this assemblage of bolshevist allegiance. This 
mission is convinced tliat no arguments of bolshevist nature were 
mentioned in the meeting in question. While it is recognized that 
certain information of bolshevist activities in Pinsk had been received 
by two Jewish soldiers, the undersigned is convinced that Maj. 
Luczynski, the town commander, showed reprehensible and frivolous 
readiness to place credence upon such untested assertions, and on this 
insufficient basis took inexcusably drastic action against reputable 
citizens whose loyal character could have been immediately estab- 
lished by a consultation with any well known non-Jewish inhabitant. 
The statements made officially by Gen. Listowski, the Polish group 
commander, that the Jewish population on April 5 attacked the 
Polish troops, are regarded by this mission as devoid of foundation. 



412 APPENDIX 

The undersigned is further of the opinion that the consultation prior 
to executing the 35 Jews, alleged by Maj. Luczynski to have had the 
character of a court-martial, was by the very nature of the case a 
most casual affair with no judicial nature whatever, since less than an 
hour elapsed between the arrest and the execution. It is further 
found that no conscientious effort was made at the time either to 
investigate the charges against the prisoners or even sufficiently to 
identify them. Though there have been official investigations of 
this case none of the offenders answerable for this summary execution 
have been punished or even tried, nor has the Diet commission pub- 
lished its findings. 

(4) Lida, April 17, 1919. 

On April 17, 1919, the Polish military forces captured Lida from 
the Russian Bolsheviks. After the city fell into the hands of the 
Poles the soldiers proceeded to enter and rob the houses of the Jews. 
During this period of pillage 39 Jews were killed. A large number 
of Jews, including the local rabbi, were arbitrarily arrested on the 
same day by the Polish authorities and kept for 24 hours without 
food amid revolting conditions of filth at No. 60 Kamienska Street. 
Jews were also impressed for forced labour without respect for age 
or infirmity. It does not appear that anyone has been punished for 
these excesses, or that any steps have been taken to reimburse the 
victims of the robberies. 

(5) Wilna, April 19-21, 1919. 

On April 19 Polish detachments entered the city of Wilna. The 
city was definitely taken by the Poles after three days of street 
fighting, during which time they lost 33 men killed. During this 
same period some 65 Jews lost their lives. From the evidence sub- 
mitted it appears that none of these people, among whom were 4 
women and 8 men over 50 years of age, had served with the 
Bolsheviks. Eight Jews were marched 3 kilometers to the outskirts 
of Wilna and deliberately shot without a semblance of a trial or 
investigation. Others were shot by soldiers who were robbing Jewish 
houses. No list has been furnished the mission of any Polish civilians 
killed during the occupation. It is, however, stated on behalf of the 
Government that the civilian inhabitants of Wilna took part on both 
sides in this fighting, and that some civilians fired upon the soldiers. 
Over 2,000 Jewish houses and stores in the city were entered by 
Polish soldiers and civilians during these three days, and the inhab- 
itants robbed and beaten. It is claimed by the Jewish community 



APPENDIX 413 

that the consequent losses amounted to over 10,000,000 rubles. Many 
of the poorest families were robbed of their shoes and blankets. 
Hundreds of Jews were arrested and deported from the city. Some 
of them were herded into box cars and kept without food or water 
for four days. Old men and children were carried away without 
trial or investigation. Two of these prisoners have since died from 
the treatment they received. Included in this list were some of the 
most prominent Jews of Wilna, such as the eminent Jewish writers, 
Jaffe and Niger. For days the families of these prisoners were with- 
out news from them and feared that they had been killed. The 
soldiers also broke into the synagogue and mutilated the sacred scrolls 
of the law. Up to August 3, 1919, when the mission was in Wilna, 
none of the soldiers or civilians responsible for these excesses had 
been punished. 

(6) Kolbuszowa, May 7, 1919. 
For a few days before May 7, 1919, the Jews of Kolbuszowa feared 
that excesses might take place, as there had been riots in the neigh- 
bouring towns of Rzeszow and Glogow. These riots had been the 
result of political agitation in this district and of excitement caused 
by a case of alleged ritual murder, in which the Jewish defendant 
had been acquitted. On May 6 a company of soldiers was ordered 
to Kolbuszowa to prevent the threatened trouble. Early in the 
morning of May 7 a great number of peasants, among whom were 
many former soldiers of the Austrian Army, entered the town. The 
rioters disarmed the soldiers after two soldiers and three peasants 
had been killed. They then proceeded to rob the Jewish stores and 
to beat any Jews who fell into their hands. Eight Jews were killed 
during this excess. Order was restored when a new detachment of 
soldiers arrived late in the afternoon. One of the rioters has since 
been tried and executed by the Polish Government. 

(7) Czestochowa, May 27, 1919. 
On May 27, 1919, at Czestochowa, a shot fired by an unknown 
person slightly wounded a Polish soldier. A rumour spread that the 
shot had been fired by the Jews, and riots broke out in the city in 
which Polish soldiers and civilians took part. During these riots 
five Jews, including a doctor who was hurrying to aid one of the in- 
jured, were beaten to death and a large number were wounded. 
French officers, who were stationed at Czestochowa, took an active 
part in preventing further murders. 



414 APPENDIX 

(8) Minsk, August 8, 1919. 
On August 8, 1919, the Polish troops took the city of Minsk from 
the Russian Bolsheviks. The Polish troops entered the city at about 
10 o'clock in the morning, and by 12 o'clock they had absolute control. 
Notwithstanding the presence in Minsk of Gen. Jadwin and other 
members of this mission, and the orders of the Polish commanding 
general forbidding violence against civilians, 31 Jews were killed by 
the soldiers. Only one of this number can in any way be connected 
with the bolshevist movement. Eighteen of the deaths appear to 
have been deliberate murder. Two of these murders were incident 
to robberies, but the rest were committed, to all appearances, solely 
on the ground that the victims were Jews. During the afternoon 
and in the evening of August 8 the Polish soldiers, aided by civilians, 
plundered 377 shops, all of which belonged to Jews. It must be 
noted, however, that about 90 per cent, of the stores in Minsk are 
owned by Jews. No effective attempt was made to prevent these 
robberies until the next morning, when adequate officers' patrols 
were sent out through the streets and order was established. The 
private houses of many of the Jews were also broken into by soldiers 
and the inhabitants were beaten and robbed. The Polish Govern- 
ment has stated that four Polish soldiers were killed while attempting 
to prevent robberies. It has also been stated to the mission that 
some of the rioters have been executed. 

7. There have also been here and there individual cases of murder 
not enumerated in the preceding paragraphs, but their detailed 
description has not been considered necessary inasmuch as they 
present no characteristics not already observed in the principal 
excesses. In considering these excesses as a whole, it should be 
borne in mind that of the eight cities and towns at which striking 
disorders have occurred, only Kielce and Czestochowa are within the 
boundaries of Congress Poland. In Kielce and Kolbuszowa the 
excesses were committed by city civilians and by peasants, respec- 
tively. At Czestochowa both civilians and soldiers took part in the 
disorders. At Pinsk the excess was essentially the fault of one 
officer. In Lemberg, Lida, Wilna, and Minsk the excesses were 
committed by the soldiers who were capturing the cities and not by 
the civilian population. In the three last-named cities the anti- 
Semitic prejudice of the soldiers had been inflamed by the charge that 
the Jews were Bolsheviks, while at Lemberg it was associated with 
the idea that the Jews were making common cause with the Ukrain- 



APPENDIX 415 

ians. These excesses were, therefore, political as well as anti-Semitic 
in character. The responsibility for these excesses is borne for the 
most part by the undisciplined and ill-equipped Polish recruits, who, 
uncontrolled by their inexperienced and ofttimes timid officers, sought 
to profit at the expense of that portion of the population which they 
regarded as alien and hostile to Polish nationality and aspirations. 
It is recognized that the enforcement of discipline in a new and un- 
trained army is a matter of extreme difficulty. On the other hand, 
the prompt cessation of disorder in Lemberg after the adoption of 
appropriate measures of control shows that an unflinching determina- 
tion to restore order and a firm application of repressive measures can 
prevent, or at least limit, such excesses. It is, therefore, believed that 
a more aggressive punitive policy, and a more general publicity for 
reports of judicial and military prosecutions, would have minimized 
subsequent excesses by discouraging the belief among the soldiery that 
robbery and violence could be committed with impunity. 

8. Just as the Jews would resent being condemned as a race for 
the action of a few of their undesirable coreligionists, so it would be 
correspondingly unfair to condemn the Polish nation as a whole for 
the violence committed by uncontrolled troops or local mobs. These 
excesses were apparently not premeditated, for if they had been part 
of a preconceived plan, the number of victims would have run into 
the thousands instead of amounting to about 280. It is believed that 
these excesses were the result of a widespread anti-Semitic prejudice 
aggravated by the belief that the Jewish inhabitants were politically 
liostile to the Polish State. When the boundaries of Poland are once 
fixed, and the internal organization of the country is perfected, the 
Polish Government will be increasingly able to protect all classes of 
Polish citizenry. Since the Polish Republic has subscribed to the 
treaty which provides for the protection of racial^ religious and lin- 
guistic minorities,, it is confidently anticipated that the Government 
will whole-heartedly accept the responsibility, not only of guarding 
certain classes of its citizens from aggression, but also of educating 
the masses beyond the state of mind that makes such aggression 
possible. 

9. Besides these excesses there have been reported to the mission 
numerous cases of other forms of persecutions. Thus, in almost 
every one of the cities and towns of Poland, Jews have been stopped 
by the soldiers and had their beards either torn out or cut off. As 
the orthodox Jews feel that the shaving of their beards is contrary 



416 APPENDIX 

to their religious belief, this form of persecution has a particular 
significance to them. Jews also have been beaten and forced from 
trains and railroad stations. As a result many of them are afraid 
to travel. The result of all these minor persecutions is to keep the 
Jewish population in a state of ferment, and to subject them to the 
fear that graver excesses may again occur. 

10. Wliereas it has been easy to determine the excesses which took 
place and to fix the approximate number of deaths, it was more 
difficult to establish the extent of anti-Jewish discrimination. This 
discrimination finds its most conspicuous manifestation in the form 
of an economic boycott. The national Democratic Party has contin- 
uously agitated the economic strangling of the Jews. Through the 
press and political announcements, as well as by public speeches, the 
non-Jewish element of the Polish people is urged to abstain from 
dealing with the Jews. Landowners are warned not to sell their 
property to Jews, and in some cases where such sales have been made, 
the names of the offenders have been posted within black-bordered 
notices, stating that such vendors were "dead to Poland." Even at 
the present time, this campaign is being waged by most of the non- 
Jewish press, which constantly advocates that the economic boycott 
be used as a means of ridding Poland of its Jewish element. This 
agitation had created in the minds of some of the Jews the feeling that 
there is an invisible rope around their necks, and they claim that this 
is the worst persecution that they can be forced to endure. Non- 
Jewish labourers have in many cases refused to work side by side 
with Jews. The percentage of Jews in public office, especially those 
holding minor positions, such as railway employees, firemen, police- 
men, and the like, has been materially reduced since the present 
Government has taken control. Documents have been furnished the 
mission showing that Government-owned railways have discharged 
Jewish employees and given them certificates that they have been 
released for no other reason than that they belong to the Jewish race. 

11. Furthermore, the establishment of cooperative stores is claimed 
by many Jewish traders to be a form of discrimination. It would 
seem, however, that this movement is a legitimate effort to restrict 
the activities and therefore the profits of the middleman. Unfor- 
tunately, when these stores were introduced into Poland, they were 
advertised as a means of eliminating the Jewish trader. The Jews 
have, therefore, been caused to feel that the establishment of cooper- 
atives is an attack upon themselves. While the establishment and 



APPENDIX 417 

the maintenance of cooperatives may have been influenced by anti- 
Semitic sentiment, this is a form of economic activity which any com- 
munity is perfectly entitled to pursue. On the other hand, the Jews 
complain that even the Jewish cooperatives and individual Jews are 
discriminated against by the Government in the distribution of 
Government-controlled supplies. 

12. The Government has denied that discrimination against Jews 
has been practiced as a Government policy, though it has not denied 
that there may be individual cases where anti-Semitism has played 
a part. Assurances have been made to the mission by official 
authorities that in so far as it lies within the power of the Government 
this discrimination will be corrected. 

13. In considering the causes for the anti-Semitic feeling which 
has brought about the manifestations described above, it must be 
remembered that ever since the partition of 1795 the Poles have 
striven to be reunited as a nation and to regain their freedom. This 
continual effort to keep alive their national aspirations has caused 
them to look with hatred upon anything which might interfere with 
their aims. This has led to a conflict with the nationalist declara- 
tions of some of the Jewish organizations which desire to establish 
cultural autonomy financially supported by the State. In addition, 
the position taken by the Jews in favour of article 93 of the Treaty 
of Versailles, guaranteeing protection to racial linguistic and reli- 
gious minorities in Poland has created a further resentment against 
them. Moreover, Polish national feeling is irritated by what is 
regarded as the "alien" character of the great mass of the Jewish 
population. This is constantly brought home to the Poles by the 
fact that the majority of the Jews affect a distinctive dress, observe 
the Sabbath on Saturday, conduct business on Sunday, have sep- 
arate dietary laws, wear long beards, and speak a language of 
their own. The basis of this language is a German dialect, and the 
fact that Germany was, and still is, looked upon by the Poles as 
an enemy country renders this vernacular especially unpopular. 
The concentration of the Jews in separate districts or quarters in 
Polish cities also emphasizes the line of demarcation separating 
them from other citizens. 

14. The strained relations between the Jews and non-Jews have 
been further increased not only by the Great War, during which 
Poland was the battle ground for the Russian, German, and Aus- 



418 APPENDIX 

trian Annies, but also by the present conflicts with the Bolsheviks 
and the Ukrainians. The economic condition of Poland is at its 
lowest ebb. Manufacturing and commerce have virtually ceased. 
The shortage, the high price, and the imperfect distribution of 
food, are a dangerous menace to the health and welfare of the 
urban population. As a result, hundreds of thousands are suffering 
from hunger and are but half clad, while thousands are dying of 
disease and starvation. The cessation of commerce is particularly 
felt by the Jewish population, which are almost entirely dependent 
upon it. Owing to the condition described, prices have doubled 
and tripled, and the population has become irritated against the 
Jewish traders, whom it blames for the abnormal increase thus 
occasioned. 

15. The great majority of Jews in Poland belong to separate 
Jewish political parties. The largest of these are the Orthodox, 
the Zionist, and the National. Since the Jews form separate polit- 
ical groups it is probable that some of the Polish discrimination 
against them is political rather than anti-Semitic in character. 
The dominant Polish parties give to their supporters Government 
positions and Government patronage. It is to be hoped, however, 
that the Polish majority will not follow this system in the case of 
positions which are not essentially political. There should be no 
discrimination in the choice of professors and teachers, nor in the 
selection of railroad employees, policemen, and firemen, or the 
incumbents of any other positions which are placed under the civil 
service in England and the United States. Like other democracies, 
Poland must realize that these positions must not be drawn into 
politics. Efficiency can only be attained if the best men are 
employed, irrespective of party or religion. 

16. The relations between the Jews and non-Jews will un- 
doubtedly improve in a strong democratic Poland. To hasten this 
there should be reconciliation and cooperation between the 86 per 
cent. Christians and the 14 per cent. Jews. The 86 per cent, must 
realize that they can not present a solid front against their neigh- 
bours if one-seventh of the population is discontented, fear-stricken, 
and inactive. The minority must be encouraged to participate with 
their whole strength and influence in making Poland the great 
unified country that is required in central Europe to combat the 
tremendous dangers that confront it. Poland must promptly de- 
velop its full strength, and by its conduct first merit and then 



APPENDIX 419 

receive the unstinted moral, financial, and economic support of all 
the world, which will insure the future success of the Republic. 

17. It was impossible for the mission, during the two months it 
was in Poland, to do more than acquaint itself with the general 
condition of the people. To formulate a solution of the Jewish 
problem will necessitate a careful and broad study, not only of the 
economic condition of the Jews, but also of the exact requirements 
of Poland. These requirements will not be definitely known prior 
to the fixation of Polish boundaries, and the final regulation of 
Polish relations with Russia, with which the largest share of trade 
was previously conducted. It is recommended that the League of 
Nations, or the larger nations interested in this problem, send to 
Poland a commission consisting of recognized industrial, educa- 
tional, agricultural, economic, and vocational experts, which should 
remain there as long as necessary to examine the problem at its 
source. 

18. This commission should devise a plan by which the Jews in 
Poland can secure the same economic and social opportunities as 
are enjoyed by their coreligionists in other free countries. A new 
Polish constitution is now in the making. The generous scope of 
this national instrument has already been indicated by the special 
treaty with the allied and associated powers, in which Poland has 
affirmed its fidelity to the principles of liberty and justice and the 
rights of minorities, and we may be certain that Poland will be 
faithful to its pledge, which is so conspicuously in harmony with 
the nation's best traditions. A new life will thus be opened to the 
Jews and it will be the task of the proposed commission to fit them 
to profit thereby and to win the same appreciation gained by their 
coreligionists elsewhere as a valued asset to the commonwealths in 
which they reside. The friends of the Jews in America, England, 
and elsewhere who have already evinced such great interest in 
their welfare, will enthusiastically grasp the opportunity to co- 
operate in working out any good solution that such a commission 
may propound. The fact that it may take one or two generations 
to reach the goal must not be discouraging. 

19. All citizens of Poland should realize that they must live 
together. They can not be divorced from each other by force or 
by any court of law. Wlien this idea is once thoroughly compre- 
hended, every effort will necessarily be directed toward a better 
understanding and the amelioration of existing conditions, rather 



420 APPENDIX 

than toward augmenting antipathy and discontent. The Polish 
nation must see that its worst enemies are those who encourage this 
internal strife. A house divided against itself can not stand. There 
must be but one class of citizens in Poland, all members of which 
enjoy equal rights and render equal duties. 
Respectfully submitted. 

Henry Morgenthau. 



AMERICAN COMMISSION TO NEGOTIATE PEACE 

Warsaw, 10 August, 1919. 
My dear Mr. President: 

In compliance with your request to submit to you in writing the 
suggestions I made to you last evening, I desire to state that the 
interest of President Wilson and the citizenry of the United States 
was not only to investigate the various occurrences during and after 
the occupation of some of the cities in your country as well as the 
alleged persecutions of the Jews, but also to ascertain the entire matter 
so objectively, impartiall}', and disinterestedly, as to enable the com- 
mission correctly to diagnose the difficulties and suggest a remedy. 

Although our investigations are by no means completed, I have 
discovered that some of the main causes of your troubles are the 
inevitable results of conditions that your country has gradually drifted 
into, and are due to the fact that the release of the various sections 
of your country from them, to the objectionable rule by foreign poten- 
tates, came so suddenly that it found them unprepared to face and 
successfully grapple with the complicated problems resulting there- 
from. 

Poland, having at last had all her dreams realized, her ambitions 
more than gratified, finds herself economically prostrate on her back, 
yet too proud to ask for outside assistance. Her splendid pride has 
at all times to be considered by anyone who wishes to be of any use 
to the country. I feel that Poland possesses great resiliency, and has 
much latent potentiality, and all she requires is to be given some 
confidence in herself, and to be shown how to "help herself." 
The new, proud Polish republic not only requires personal liberty, 
but as much freedom as possible from obligations to others for the 
exercise of the same. I firmly believe that when she is enabled to 
do this, she will ungrudgingly grant to her minorities the same 
privilege. 



APPENDIX 421 

I am anxious to show Poland how she can rise from her prostrate 
position and discover that she has adequate strength, with very little 
propping, to start a brisk walk toward the goal she is aiming for — 
self-reliant, successful independence. It has occurred to me that if 
in her earliest steps she will permit her good friends, the other 
members of the League of Nations, to assist her with tender sympathy 
and unselfish, fraternal feeling, that she will be astonished at the 
rapidity of her progress. You need to have proclaimed for your 
government, your people, and the world, that your associates believe 
in you and want you to become a strong country, and are anxious to 
have you promptly develop that strength, for reasons too obvious to 
mention. 

It has occurred to me that what you require is a proper currency 
system, and sufficient funds to enable you to secure adequate raw 
material and fuel that will justify your factories in starting off at 
full speed and not having to fear an early suspension of their 
activities. And you will have to establish some institution that will 
restore confidence in your population who, as I am reliably informed, 
are at present hiding, and therefore not using, a substantial part of 
your liquid financial resources. 

A corporation should be organized with $150,000,000 capital, the 
right to subscribe should be divided, one-third to Poland, one-third 
to the United States, and one-third to England, France, Italy, etc. 
The stock should be paid in in instalments, particularly as to those 
shares subscribed for by Polish capital, as it is desirable that the 
Poles be given sufficient time so as to secure personally the benefits of 
the tremendous rise in the value of your marks which would result 
from the creation of this company. For this purpose I suggest five 
or six instalments, extending over a year or longer. The sum of 
$50,000 or $60,000 should be spent for publicity for subscriptions 
in all of your newspapers, and great stress should be laid on the 
fact that the mass of your people is to receive the preference in the 
allotment of stock. A systematic campaign something like our Liberty 
Loan campaigns, should be organized so as to create the proper 
sentiment in the country, to encourage rivalry between your various 
large cities, and rouse the patriotism of all your citizens. Care should 
be taken in the constitution of these committees so as to make them 
platforms for the promotion of better feeling amongst your people. 
All subscriptions of $100 or less should be allotted in full. This 
would satisfy your population that it was to be a genuine Polish 
people's institution. 



422 APPENDIX 

After a dividend of six per cent, is paid on the stock, the balance 
of the profits should be divided equally between the stockholders and 
the State. The profits paid to the State to be in lieu of all taxes. 
This would work both ways : it would satisfy the people that the State 
is to have its share, and it would satisfy the investors that they could 
not be subjected, in any possible changed form of government of 
Poland, to excessive taxation. 

The establishment of such a corporation would at once create a 
large permanent credit for Poland. This corporation could assume 
the responsibility of contracts for large quantities of cotton, wool and 
produce, ships, and all necessary requirements for Poland's resump- 
tion of activities. 

Branches of the corporation should be established in all the large 
cities. I believe from conversations I have had with representative 
men in Wilno that they would subscribe largely to the stock, because 
I told them that although America would very likely be willing to 
participate in the creation of a large central institution for Poland 
with its headquarters at Warsaw and branches in the larger cities, it 
would certainly not be interested in a local institution in Wilno. It 
has occurred to me that cities like Wilno, Lemberg, Cracow and Lodz, 
etc., would vie with each other in subscribing to this institution if they 
were told that the capital allotted to their district would depend upon 
their subscriptions. It would be safe to say to them that there would 
be two dollars of foreign capital for every dollar that they would 
subscribe. 

It seems highly important that England be interested in this 
corporation, because if the United States suggests its organization we 
must promptly assure all other countries, including the neutrals dur- 
ing the recent war, that America expects no commercial advantage 
over any other country in Poland. 

I deem it very desirable that the stock owned by foreigners should 
contain a provision that the Polish Government, or a syndicate of 
which they would approve, would have the right at any time to buy 
the stock from the owners at from $125 to $160 per share. This 
would serve a double purpose: it would do away with any desire on 
the part of the Poles to have control of the institution from the very 
start, because they would know that at any time they could secure the 
same, and it would enable them to feel that this important concern 
could be made entirely Polish whenever their strength justified it; 
and the foreign owners would, on the other hand, feel that they would 
receive a proper compensation for their risk, and they would have 



APPENDIX 423 

rendered a fine service, not only to Poland, but to the entire world 
in accelerating the development of Poland's economic strength. 

I have carefully canvassed the available material in the United 
States for the president of this institution, and suggest to you that we 
secure Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane. There are few 
men in the United States that more deservedly possess the admiration 
and approval of all Americans. He is a man who is entirely free 
from any financial alliances, and therefore cannot be criticized on that 
score. Incidentally, it would be of the greatest service to your 
government to have one of the greatest experts in the science of 
government accessible to your cabinet and functionaries. As you no 
doubt remember, he has not only successfully administered that great 
Department of the Interior, but also was member and chairman of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States. He was 
selected by President Wilson as one of the commissioners that was 
sent to Mexico, and for other commissions. I have every reason to 
feel that President Wilson, although reluctantly, would consent to 
Secretary Lane's responding to this call. 

I think that the mere announcement of the contemplation of such 
an institution will electrify your people, and will replace the present 
pessimism with an optimism that will astound all of us. 

If you and your associates in the government of Poland approve of 
the suggestion, our commission is ready and anxious to help you and 
such representatives of England, France, Italy, and other countries as 
you may invite to join us, promptly to work out the details and make 
this thought a living thing. 

With kindest personal regards. 
Yours very truly, 

Henry Morgenthau. 
Hon. Ignace Paderewski, 

President of the Council of Ministers, Warsaw. 

MANDATES OR WAR.?^ 

world peace held to be menaced unless the united states 
assumes control of the sultan's former dominions 

I AM one of those who believe that the United States should accept 
a mandate for Constantinople and the several provinces in Asia Minor 
which constitute what is left of the Ottoman Empire. 



1 Reprinted from the New York Times of November 9, 1919. Copyright, 1919, by 
the New York Times Company. 



424 APPENDIX 

I am aware that this proposition is not popular with the American 
people. But it seems to me to be a matter in which we do not have 
much choice. Nations, like individuals, are constantly subject to 
forces which are stronger than their wills. The responsibilities which 
nations inherit, like the responsibilities to which individuals fall heir, 
are frequently not of their own choosing. The great European con- 
flict in August, 1914, seemed to be a matter that did not immediately 
concern us. In two years we learned that it was very much our 
affair. The impelling forces of history drew us in, and led us to 
play a decisive part. If we could not keep out of this struggle, it is 
illogical to suppose that we can avoid its consequences. 

One of the most serious of these consequences and the one that 
perhaps most threatens the peace of the world is a chaotic Turkey. 
Unless the United States accepts a Turkish mandate the world will 
again lose the opportunity of solving the problem that has endangered 
civilization for 500 years. 

The United States has invested almost $40,000,000,000 in a war 
against militarism and for the establishment of right. We must in- 
vest three or four billions more in an attempt to place on a permanent 
foundation the nations to whose rescue we came. An essential part 
of this programme is the expulsion of the Turk from Europe and the 
establishment as going concerns of the nations which have been so 
long subject to his tyranny. Unless we succeed in doing this we can 
look for another Balkan war in a brief period, perhaps five years. 

Another Balkan war will mean another European war, another 
world war. It is for the United States to decide whether such a 
calamity shall visit the world at an early date. If we assume the 
mandate for Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire probably we can 
prevent it; if, as so many Americans insist, we reject this duty, we 
shall become responsible for another world conflagration. 

Perhaps the most ominous phase of world politics to-day is that 
new voices are interceding in behalf of the Sultan and his distracted 
domain. The Government at Constantinople is making one last 
despairing attempt to save the bedraggled remnants of its empire. 
It has reorganized its Cabinet, putting to the fore men who are 
expected to impress Europe favourably; but it is not punishing the 
leaders who sold out to Germany and murdered not far from a 
million of its Christian subjects. The new Sultan has given inter- 
views to the press, expressing his horror at the Armenian massacres, 
and promising that nothing like them shall ever occur again. More 
ominous than these outgivings is the fact that certain spokesmen in 



APPENDIX 425 

behalf of the Turk are making themselves heard in the allied countries. 
Again it is being said that what Turkey needs is not obliteration as 
a State, but reform. 

Probably the financial interests which look upon Turkey as a field 
for concessions are largely responsible for this talk; the imperialistic 
tendencies of certain European countries are blamable to a certain 
extent, for, strange as it may seem, there are still many people in 
England, France, and Italy who urge that the Turk, bad as his 
instincts may be, is better than the Oriental peoples whom he holds 
in subjection. 

If we listen to these arguments, and to the fair promises of the 
Turkish Government^ we shall put ourselves into the position of a 
society which fails to protect itself against the habitual criminal. 
Every civilized society nowadays sees to it that constant offenders 
against decency and law are put where they can do no harm. Yet the 
Turk is the habitual criminal of history, the constant offender against 
the peace and dignity of the world, and if we permit him to remain 
in Europe, and to retain an uncontrolled sovereignty, it is easy to 
foresee the time when a regenerated Russia will again be dependent 
on him for a commercial outlet, so that the dangerous situation of 
the old world-order will be duplicated and perpetuated. We cannot 
hope sanely for peace unless America establishes at Constantinople 
a centre from which democratic principles shall radiate and illuminate 
that dark region of the world. 

If we look at the Near Eastern situation we perceive that Italy and 
Greece are reaching out to such distances for territory and power 
that both, if their ambitions are gratified, will find themselves not 
only unable to govern the new lands they have acquired, but will be 
greatly weakened at home through expenditures in the maintenance 
of troops and governments in their colonies. The danger is not only 
that the Balkans will be more Balkanized than ever, but that Russia, 
too, will be Balkanized. The only safety lies in setting up a benefi- 
cent influence through a strong government in Constantinople, 
which would counteract the intrigues and contentions of embittered 
rivals. 

A brief survey of the history of Turkey in Europe will suffice to 
make clear the danger of accepting in this late day any promises of 
reform from that quarter. I have always thought that the final word 
on Turkey was spoken by an American friend of mine who had spent 
a large part of his life in the East, and who, on a visit to Berlin, was 
asked by Herr von Gwinner, the President of the Deutsche Bank, to 



426 APPENDIX 

spend an evening with him to discuss the future of the Sultan's empire. 
When my friend came to keep this appointment he began this way : 

"You have set aside this whole evening to discuss the Ottoman 
Empire. We do not need all that time. I can tell you the whole 
story in just four words: Turkey is not reformable!" 

"You have summed up the whole situation perfectly," replied Von 
Gwinner. 

The reason why this conclusion was so accurate was that it was 
based, not upon theory, but upon experiment. The history of Turkey 
for nearly a hundred years has simply amounted to an attempt to 
reform her. Every attempt has ignominiously failed. Up to fifteen 
years ago Great Britain's policy in the Near East had as its controlling 
principle the necessity of maintaining the independence and integrity 
of the Ottoman Empire. The folly of this policy and the miseries 
which it has brought to Europe are so apparent that I propose to 
discuss the matter in some detail, particularly as it is only by studying 
this attitude of the past that we can approach the solution of the 
Turkish problem of the present. 

From 1853 to 1856 Great Britain and France fought a terrible, 
devastating war, the one purpose of which was to maintain the 
independence of Turkey. At this time the British public had before 
them the Turkish problem in almost the same form as that which it 
manifests to-day. As now, the issue turned upon whether they should 
regard this question from the standpoint of civilization and decency, 
or from the standpoint of national advantage and political expediency. 

The character of the Turk was the same in 1853 that it is now; he 
was just as incapable politically then as he is to-day; his attitude 
toward the Christian populations whom the accident of history had 
placed in his power was identically the same as it is now. These 
populations were merely "filthy infidels," hated by Allah, having no 
rights to their own lives or property, who would be permitted to live 
only as slaves of the mighty Mussulman, and who could be tortured 
and murdered at will. All European statesmen knew in 1852 that 
the ultimate disappearance of the Ottoman Empire was inevitable; 
all understood that it was only the support of certain European 
powers that permitted it to exist, even temporarily. 

It was about this time that Czar Nicholas I applied to Turkey the 
name "sick man of the East," which has ever since been accepted as an 
accurate description of its political and social status. The point 
which I wish to make here is that that phrase is just as appropriate 
to-day as it was then. The Turk had long since learned the great 



APPENDIX 427 

resources of Ottoman statesmanship — the adroit balancing of one 
European power against another as the one security of his own 
existence. 

Yet, there was then a school of statesmanship, headed by Palmer- 
ston, which declared that the preservation of this decrepit power was 
the indispensable point in British foreign policy. These men were 
as realistic in their policies as Bismarck himself. Outwardly they 
expressed their faith in the Turk; they publicly pictured him as a 
charming and chivalrous gentleman; they declared that the stories of 
his brutality were fabrications ; and they asserted that, once given an 
opportunity, the Turkish Empire would regain its splendour and 
become a headquarters of intelligence and toleration. Lord Palmer- 
ston simply outdid himself in his adulation of the Turk. He publicly 
denounced the Christian populations of Turkey; the stories of their 
sufferings he declared to be the most absurd nonsense; he warned the 
British public against being led astray by cheap sentimentality in 
dealing with the Turkish problem. 

To what extent Palmerston and his associates believed their own 
statements is not clear; they were trained in a school of statesman- 
ship which taught that it was well to believe what it was convenient 
to believe. The fact was, of course, that the British public was under 
no particular hallucinations about the Turk. But its mind was filled 
with a great obsession and a great fear. The thing that paralyzed 
its moral sense was the steady progress of Russia. 

This power, starting as a landlocked nation, had gradually pushed 
her way to the Black Sea. There was something in her steady 
progress southward tliat seemed almost as inevitable as fate. That 
Russia was determined to obtain Constantinople and become heir to 
the Sultan's empire was the conviction that obsessed the British 
mind. Once this happened, the Palmerston school declared, the 
British Empire would come speedily to an end. It is almost im- 
possible for us of this generation to conceive the extent to which 
this fear of Russia laid hold of the British mind. It dogged all the 
thoughts of British statesmen and British publicists. There appeared 
to be only one way of checking Russia and protecting the British 
fireside — that was to preserve the Turkish Empire. England believed 
that, as long as the Sultan ruled at Constantinople, the Russian 
could never occupy that capital and from it menace the British Em- 
pire. 

Thus British enthusiasm for Turkey was merely an expression of 



428 APPENDIX 

hatred and fear of Russia. It was this that led British statesmen to 
disregard the humane principles involved and adopt the course that 
apparently promoted the national advantage. The English situation 
of 1853 presented in particularly acute form that question which has 
always troubled statesmen: Is there any such thing as principle in 
the conduct of a nation, or is a country justified always in adopting 
the course that best promotes its interests or which seems to do so? 
As applied to Turkey it was this: Was it Great Britain's duty to 
protect the Christians against the murderous attacks of the Moham- 
medans, or should she shut her eyes to their sufferings so long as this 
course proved profitable politically.'' 

I should be doing an injustice to England did I not point out that 
the British public has always been divided on this issue. One side 
has always insisted on regarding the Turkish problem as a matter 
simply of expediency, while another has insisted on solving it on the 
ground of justice and right. The party of humanity existed in the 
days of the Crimean war. Their leaders were Richard Cobden and 
John Bright — men who formed the vanguard in that group of 
British statesmen who insisted on regarding public questions from 
other than materialistic standpoints. 

Cobden and Bright saw in the Ottoman question, as it presented 
itself in 1853, not chiefly a problem in the balance of power, but one 
that affected the lives of millions of human beings. It was not the 
threatened aggression of Russia that disturbed them; their eyes were 
fixed rather on the Christian populations that were being daily tortured 
under Turkish rule. They demanded a solution of the Eastern ques- 
tion in the way that would best promote the welfare of the Armenians, 
Greeks, Syrians, and Jews, whom the Sultan had maltreated for 
centuries. They cared little for the future of Constantinople; they 
cared much for the future of these persecuted peoples. They there- 
fore took what was, I am sorry to say, the unpopular side in that day. 
They opposed the mad determination of the British public to go to 
war for the sake of maintaining the Turkish Empire. 

The greatest speech John Bright ever made was against the 
Crimean War. "That terrible oppression, that multitudinous crime 
which we call the Ottoman Empire," was his description of the coun- 
try which Palmerston so greatly admired. Richard Cobden had 
studied conditions at first hand and had reached a conclusion iden- 
tically the same as that of my friend whom I have already quoted — 
that is, that Turkey was not reformable. He ridiculed the fear that 
everywhere prevailed against Russia, denied that Russia's prosperity 



APPENDIX 429 

as a nation necessarily endangered Great Britain, declared that the 
Turkish Empire could not be maintained, and that, even though it 
could be, it was not worth preserving. 

"You must address yourselves," said Cobden, "as men of sense 
and men of energy to the question — What are you to do with the 
Christian population? For Mohammedanism cannot be maintained, 
and I should be sorry to see this country fighting for the maintenance 
of Mohammedanism. . . . You may keep Turkey on the map of 
Europe, you may call the country by the name of Turkey if you 
like, but do not think that you can keep up the Mohammedan rule in 
the country." 

These were about the mightiest voices in England at that time, but 
even Cobden and Bright were wildly abused for maintaining that the 
Eastern question was primarily a problem in ethics. In order to 
preserve this hideous anachronism England fought a bloody and 
disastrous war. I presume most Englishmen to-day regard the 
Crimean War as about the most wicked and futile in their national 
existence. When the whole thing was over, a witty Frenchman 
summed up the performance by saying: "If we read the treaty of 
peace, there are no visible signs to show who were the conquerors 
and who the vanquished." There was only one power which could 
view the results with much satisfaction; that was Turkey. The 
Treaty of Paris specifically guaranteed her independence and integ- 
rity. It shut the Black Sea to naval vessels, thus protecting Turkey 
from attack by Russia. Worst of all, it left the Sultan's Christian 
subjects absolutely in his power. 

The Sultan did, indeed, promise reforms — but he merely promised 
them. Despite experience to the contrary, the British and French 
diplomats blandly accepted this promise as equivalent to performance. 
It is painful to look back to this year 1856; to realize that France 
and England, having defeated Russia, had a free hand to solve the 
Ottoman problem, and that they refrained from doing so. That 
absurd prepossession that this oriental empire must be preserved in 
Europe simply as a buffer state against the progress of Russia 
entirely controlled the minds of British statesmen — and millions of 
Christian people were left to their fate. 

What that fate was we all know. The Sultan's promises of reform, 
never made in good faith, were immediately disregarded. Pillage, 
massacre, and lust continued to be the chief instruments used by the 
Sublime Porte in governing its subject peoples. Again the Sultan 
maintained his throne by playing off one European power against 



430 APPENDIX 

another. The "settlement" of the Eastern problem which had been 
provided by the Crimean War lasted until 1876. 

These twenty years were not quiet ones in the Ottoman dominions; 
they were a time of constant misery and torture for the abandoned 
Christian populations. Great Britain and France learned precisely 
what the "integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire" meant 
in 1876, when stories of the Bulgarian massacres again reached 
Europe. Once more Europe faced this everlasting question of the 
Turk in precisely the same form as in 1856. Again the British people 
had to decide between expediency and principle in deciding the future 
of Turkey. Again the British public divided into two groups. 
Palmerston was dead, but his animosity to Russia and his fondness 
for the Turk had become the inheritance of Disraeli. With this 
statesman, as with his predecessor, Turkey was a nation that must be 
preserved, whatever might be the lot of her suffering Christians. 
The other part, that played by Cobden and Bright in 1856, was now 
played by Gladstone. 

"The greatest triumph of our time," said Gladstone in 1870, "will 
be the enthronement of the idea of public right as the governing idea 
of European politics." And Gladstone now proposed to apply his 
lofty principles to this new Turkish crisis. Many of us remember 
the attitude of the Disraeli Government in those days. We are still 
proud of the part played by two Americans, McGahan, a newspaper 
correspondent, and Schuyler, the American Consul at Constan- 
tinople, in bringing the real facts to the attention of the civilized 
world. 

Until these men published the results of their investigations the 
Disraeli Government branded all the reports of Bulgarian atrocities 
as lies. "Coffee-house babble" was the term applied by Disraeli to 
these reports, while Lord Salisbury, in a public address, lauded the 
personal character of the Sultan. But these two Americans showed 
that the Bulgarian reports were not idle gossip. They furnished 
Gladstone his material for his famous Bulgarian pamphlet, in which 
he propounded the only solution of the Turkish problem that should 
satisfy the conscience of the British people. His words, uttered in 
1876, are just as timely now as they were then. 

"Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible 
manner, namely, by carrying away themselves. Their Zaptiehs and 
their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yugbashis, their Kaimakans 
and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear 
out from the province they have desolated and profaned." 



APPENDIX 431 

Gladstone's denunciation stirred the British conscience to its depths. 
Tlie finer side of the British character manifested itself; the public 
conscience had made great advances since 1856, and the masses of 
the British people began to see the Ottoman problem in its true light. 
Consequently, when Russia intervened in behalf of the Bulgarians 
and other persecuted peoples, England did not commit the fearful 
mistake of 1853 — she did not go to war to prevent the intervention. 
British public opinion at first applauded the Russian armies; when, 
however, the Czar's forces approached Constantinople, the old dread 
of Crimean days seized the British public once more. Again English- 
men forgot the miseries of the Christians and began to see the spectre 
of Russia seated at Constantinople. Again Great Britain began to 
prepare for war; the British fleet passed the Dardanelles and anchored 
off Constantinople. England again declared that the safety of her 
empire demanded the preservation of Turkey, and gave Russia the 
option of war or a congress at which the treaty she had made with 
Turkey should be revised. 

Russia accepted the latter alternative, and the Congress of Berlin 
was the result. This Congress could have freed all the subject peo- 
ples and solved the Eastern question, but again civilized Europe threw 
away the opportunity. At this Congress England, in the person of 
Disraeli, became the Sultan's advocate, and again the Sultan came 
out victorious. Certain territories he lost, it is true, but Constanti- 
nople was left in his hands and a great area of the Balkans and the 
larger part of Asia Minor. As for the Armenians, the Syrians, the 
Greeks, and the Macedonians, the world once more accepted from 
Turkey promises of reform. Thus Gladstone and the most enlight- 
ened opinion in England lost their battle, and British authority again 
became the instrument for preserving that "terrible oppression, that 
multitudinous crime which we call the Ottoman Empire." 

Had it not been for the Congress of Berlin it is possible that we 
should never have had the world war. The treaty let Austria into 
Bosnia and Herzegovina and so laid the basis for the ultimatum of 
July 22, 1914. It failed to settle the fate of Macedonia, and so made 
inevitable the Balkan wars. By leaving Turkey an independent 
sovereignty, with its capital on the Bosphorus, it made possible the 
intrigues of Germany for a great Oriental empire. No wonder Glad- 
stone denounced it as an "insane covenant" and "the most deplorable 
chapter in our foreign policy since the peace of 1816." 

"The plenipotentiaries," he said, "have spoken in the terms of 
Metternich rather than those of Canning. ... It was their part 



432 APPENDIX 

to take the side of liberty — as a matter of fact, they took the side of 
servitude." 

The greatest sufferers, as always, were the Christian populations. 
The Sultan treated his promises of 1878 precisely as he had treated 
those of 1856. It was after this treaty, indeed, that Abdul Hamid 
adopted his systematic plan of solving the Armenian problem by 
massacring all the Armenians. The condition of the subject peoples 
became worse as years went on, until finally, in 1915, we had the most 
terrible persecutions in history. 

The Russian terror, if it ever was a terror, has disappeared. 
England no longer fears a Russia stationed at Constantinople and 
threatening her Indian Empire. The once mighty giant now lies a 
hopelessly crippled invalid, utterly incapable of aggressive action 
against any nation. What her fate will be no one knows. What is 
certain, however, is that the old Czaristic empire, constantly bent on 
military aggression, has disappeared for ever. When we look upon 
Russia to-day and then think of the terror which she inspired in the 
hearts of British statesmen forty and sixty-two years ago the contrast 
is almost pitiful and grotesque. The nation that succeeded Russia 
as an ambitious heir to the Sultan's dominions, Germany, is now almost 
as powerless. 

Moreover, the British conscience has changed since the days of the 
Crimean and Russo-Turkish wars. The old-time attitude, which 
insisted on regarding these problems from the standpoint of fancied 
national interest, is every day giving place to a more humanitarian 
policy. Gladstone's idea of "public right as the governing idea of 
European politics" is more and more gaining the upper hand. The 
ideals in foreign policy represented by Cobden and Bright are the 
ideals that now control British public opinion. There are still 
plenty of reactionaries in England and Europe that might like to 
settle the Ottoman problem in the old discredited way, but they do 
not govern British public life at the present crisis. The England that 
will deal with the Ottoman Empire in 1919 is the England of Lloyd 
George, not the England of Palmerston and Disraeli. 

For the first time, therefore, the world approaches the problem of 
the Ottoman Empire, the greatest blight in modern civilization, with 
an absolutely free hand. The decision will inform us, more eloquently 
than any other detail in the settlement, precisely what forces have 
won in this war. We shall learn from it whether we have really 
entered upon a new epoch ; whether, as we hope, mediaeval history has 
ended and modern history has begun. 



APPENDIX 433 

If Constantinople is left to the Turk; if the Greeks, the Syrians, 
the Armenians, the Arabs and the Jews are not freed from the most 
revolting tyranny that history has ever known, we shall understand 
that the sacrifices of the last four years have been in vain, and that 
the much-discussed new ideals in the government of the world are the 
merest cant. Thus the United States has an immediate interest in 
the solution of this problem. The hints reaching this country that 
another effort may be made to prop up the Turk are not pleasing to 
us. We did not enter this war to set up new balances of power, to 
promote the interests of concessionaries, to make new partitions of 
territory, to satisfy the imperialistic ambitions of contending Euro- 
pean powers, but to lend our support to that new international 
conscience that seeks to reorganize the world on the basis of justice 
and popular rights. The settlement of the Eastern question will 
teach us to what extent our efforts have succeeded. 

« 

If this mistake of propping up the Sultan's empire is not to be made 
again, either that empire must be divided among the great powers — a 
solution which is not to be considered for reasons which it is hardly 
necessary to explain — or one of these great powers must undertake 
its administration as a mandatory. The great powers in question are 
the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. Of 
these only the first two are capable of assuming this duty. Lord 
Curzon has told me personally that for political and economic reasons 
Great Britain cannot assume the Ottoman mandate. Lloyd George 
has said essentially the same thing. And Stephane Lauzanne, who 
speaks in a semi-official capacity for France, said, in an interview, 
Nov. 1, with a correspondent of the Times: 

"In the offer of a mandate to her, America should see more than 
the selfish desire of Europe to involve her in European affairs. It is 
true she fears to be the centre of intrigues and difficulties. She fears 
distant complications. However, the question is nobler and higher 
than that. America is an admirable reservoir of energy. She holds 
the secret of that which is best in our modern life — to build largely 
and to build quickly. She has youth; she has power; she has wealth; 
she has that which she calls efficiency. We in Europe are old, poor, 
enfeebled, divided. It would be prodigiously interesting if America, 
after she has given us of her power, of her money and her material, 
should give us also an example. 

"And what an example it would be if America were to accept the 
mandate for Constantinople ! Here is a city which is one of the 
marvels of Europe and of the world, which is the jewel of the Orient, 



434, APPENDIX 

and which after twenty centuries of European civilization remains 
the home of wickedness and corruption. Every one disputes posses- 
sion of its hills and harbours, and no one tries to make of it a great 
modern city which, rid of international intrigues and rid of politics, 
would be the shining pole of Europe. Only America can transform 
Constantinople; only America can establish herself there without 
suspicion of bad faith and without jealousy; only America can civilize 
the capital of Islam. 

"To do that America has no need of regiments of soldiers or of 
cannon. She has need only of her workers and her constructors. A 
Hoover or a Davison would be enough. And America is full of 
Hoovers and Davisons." 

I recognize the tremendous problems which confront us in our own 
country. Those problems must and will be solved. But the day is 
past when the individual citizen can permit absorption in his personal 
affairs to exclude the consideration of the community's or the nation's 
well-being. A new social conscience has manifested itself. And it 
is equally true that the United States, as a member of the League of 
Nations, must take an active and altruistic interest in world affairs, 
however pressing our own problems may seem. The European situa- 
tion, indeed, is really a part of them. Our associates in the war 
cannot drift into bankruptcy and despair without involving the United 
States in the disaster. The losses we would suffer in money would 
be the least distressing, should the world fall into the chaos which is 
threatening. If we cannot solve our own problems and at the same 
time help Europe solve hers we must be impotent indeed. 

So much, then, for the general principles involved; what are the 
practical details of such a mandate? Last May, William Buckler, 
Professor Philip M. Brown, and myself joined in a memorandum to 
President Wilson outlining briefly a proposed system of government 
for the Ottoman dominions. This so completely embodies my ideas 
that I reprint it here, with two slight omissions: 

"The government of Asia Minor should be dealt with under three 
different mandates, (1) for Constantinople and its zone, (2) for 
Turkish Anatolia, (3) for Armenia. The reason for not uniting these 
three areas under a single mandate is that the methods of government 
required in each area are different. In order, however, to facilitate 
the political and economic development of the whole country, these 
three areas should be placed under one and the same mandatory 



APPENDIX 435 

power, with a single governor in charge of the whole, to unify the 
separate administrations of the three states. 

"Honest and efficient government in the Constantinople zone and 
in Armenia will not solve the problems of Asia Minor unless the same 
kind of government is also provided for the much larger area lying 
between Constantinople and Armenia, i. e., Turkish Anatolia. Con- 
stantinople and Armenia are mere fringes; the heart of the problem 
lies in Anatolia, of which the population is 75 per cent. Moslem. 

"The main rules to be followed in dealing with this central district 
are: 

"1. That it should not be divided up among Greeks, French, Italians, &c. 

"2. That the Sultan should, under proper mandatory control, retain 
religious and political sovereignty over the Turkish people in Anatolia, hav- 
ing his residence at Brusa or Konia, both of which are ancient historic seats 
of the Sultanate. 

"3. That no part of Anatolia should be placed under Greeks, even in the 
form of a mandate. The Greeks are entitled by their numbers to a small 
area surrounding Smyrna. Under no circumstances should Greece have a 
mandate over territory mainly inhabited by Turks. 

"The above solution of the problem of Asia Minor means refusal to 
recognize secret deals such as the Pact of London and the Sykes-Picot 
Agreement and especially the Italian claims to a large territory near 
Adalia. If Greeks and Italians, with their standing antagonism, are 
introduced into Asia Minor, the peace will constantly be disturbed 
by their rivalry and intrigues. Italy has no claim to any part of 
Anatolia, whether on the basis of population, of commercial interests, 
or of historic tradition. 

"No solution of the Asia Minor problem which ignores the fact that 
its population is 75 per cent. Turkish can be considered satisfactory or 
durable. The only two countries having any prospect of successfully 
holding a mandate over Anatolia are Great Britain and the United 

States. 

"The large missionary and educational interests of the United States 
in Anatolia must be adequately protected, and it is illusory to imagine 
that this can be done if Anatolia is subjected to Greek, French, or 
Italian sovereignty. 

"Only a comprehensive, self-contained scheme such as that above 
outlined can overcome the strong prejudices of the American people 
against accepting any mandate. To cure the ills of Turkey and to 
deliver her peasantry from their present ignorance and impoverish- 



436 APPENDIX 

ment requires a thorough reconstruction of Turkish institutions, 
judicial, educational, economic, financial, and military. 

"This may appeal to the United States as an opportunity to set a 
high standard, by showing that it is the duty of a great power, in 
ruling such oppressed peoples, to lead them toward self-respecting 
independence as their ultimate goal." 

The Armenians are wholly unprepared to govern themselves or to 
protect themselves against their neighbours. Mere supervision will not 
be adequate. What the Armenian State requires is a kind of receiver- 
ship, and we should take it over in trust, to manage it until it is time 
to turn it over when it is governmentally solvent and on a going basis. 
Anatolia should be under a separate management and have its own 
parliament; its executive should be a deputy governor under a 
governor general at Constantinople. The three governments should 
have a common coinage, similar tariff requirements, and unified rail- 
road systems; and in other respects should be federated somewhat as 
states in this country are. 

The commercial importance of such an arrangement is enormous, 
for Constantinople must continue as Russia's chief outlet to the 
world, and it is the gateway to the East. The commercial policy 
would, of course, be an open-door policy. All nations would have 
equality of opportunity in trade and would be free in regard to 
colonization. As a matter of fact, the commercial situation is of 
little importance to us. Prior to the war our foreign trade amounted 
to only about 6 per cent, of our total trade; and although it increased 
during the war to about 11 per cent., it is likely to recede soon to the 
neighbourhood of 8 per cent. It will consist largely of raw materials, 
such as wheat, cotton, copper, and coal, which other nations must get 
from us, whether or no. Foreign trade is a mere incident; our 
prosperity is not what we are fighting for. 

It need not require the extension of large credits from us to put 
these nations on a sound footing. They could be financed by bond 
issues issued in each case against the resources of the territories 
involved. If the United States held the mandates, there would be 
no difficulty, I apprehend, in floating such issues. And as for the 
policing necessary, that need be very small, provided a man of strong 
will and quick decision, fertile in resources and of unshakable deter- 
mination, were assigned to the Governorship General at Constanti- 
nople. The opportunity would be a great one for an American 
completely imbued with our institutions. The succession of able 



APPENDIX 437 

pro-consuls whom we have sent to the Philippines shows that we shall 
not lack such men. 

We shall surrender our mandates over these three territories when 
we have finished our work. We shall not necessarily leave them all 
at the same time ; we shall turn each one over to its people when the 
public opinion of the world, expressed in the League of Nations, has 
decided that it is capable of directing its own affairs. It might be 
necessary for us to remain in Constantinople longer than elsewhere, 
and there is reason to suppose that Constantinople will become the 
Washington of the Balkans and perhaps of Asia Minor, the central 
governing power of the Balkan confederation. But if left without 
the guidance and help of outside intelligence and capital, those peo- 
ples will necessarily continue to retrograde. They must have security 
of property if they are to have on incentive to labour. Unless they 
have that, the blight of southeastern Europe will remain, and the 
Turks, originally a marauding band of conquerors, who have held a 
precarious and undeserved footing for more than five hundred years on 
European soil, will continue to menace its peace and safety. If ever 
there was a chance to put them out, we have that chance now. The 
United States is the only government which can undertake the 
purification of the Balkans without incurring ill-will and jealousy. 
We need not indulge in overpolite phrases. This is the only nation 
which can accept these mandates and maintain international good 
feeling. It is absolutely our fault if the Turk remains in Europe. 

The difficulties inherent in this situation can be cured only at the 
source. The League of Nations, when it comes into being, must not 
operate exclusively through a central agency at Geneva, because it 
cannot learn in that way the real difficulties and the wants of 
dependent peoples. That can be done only in the most direct way, 
through representatives on the spot. The people, moreover, want to 
be heard. They are wonderfully relieved after they have had their 
say. That fact has its touch of pathos, perhaps to some a touch of the 
ridiculous; but it is a factor of the human equation which we cannot 
afford to ignore. And if we supply American tribunals, disinterested 
and just, before which these peoples can state their grievances and 
their aspirations, we will have taken a long step toward their pacifica- 
tion and stabilization. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abdul Hamid, kept prisoner, 184 
Abraham & Straus, incident of for- 
mation of firm, 34 

- Adler, Dr. Cyrus, objects to Jew 

serving on commission to investi- 
gate Polish pogroms, 353 

- Adler, Dr. Felix, leader of a new 

movement, 95, 129 

Admission to the Bar, 29 

Adrianople, Governor of, hospitable 
reception given by, 192 

Agincourt, visit to ancient battle- 
ground, 266 

Albright, Charles P., 26 

Alexander, Andrew, building erected 
for, 55 

Alexander, James W., fights to retain 
control of Equitable Insurance Co., 
80 

Alexandria, visit to, 219 

Algef, Dr., 15 

Ali Kuli Khan, at Peace Conference, 
326 

Ali Mehemmid, visit to, 223 

Allen, Edward W., at Roosevelt's 
fusion meeting, 280 
■-Alter, Rabbi, visit to, near Warsaw, 
374 

America's true mission in Turkey, 
203 

American Chamber of Commerce for 
the Levant, speech at, 198 

American troops, arrival in France, 
restores flagging energy of the 
people, 256; visit to, on British 
front, 266; Sir Douglas Haig's im- 
pressions of, 273 

Anderson, Charles P., sails for In- 
ternational Red Cross Conference, 
310; in conference with Henry P. - 
Davison, 313 

Anderson, U. S. District Attorney, 
sends deputies to New Hampshire 
to enforce election laws, 246 

Arabian niglit, arranged by Governor 
of Nabulus, 231 

Arif Pasha, 224 

Armenia, report on, 337 

441 



Armistice, earlier than expected, 299 

Armstrong Committee, the Insurance 
investigation, 64, 66, 71 

Arnold, Olney, Consular Agent at 
Cairo, 219, 220 

Aronstam, Charles S. account of 
Roosevelt's forming fusion ticket 
for New York municipal election, 
280; tenders nomination for Presi- 
dent of Board of Aldermen, 281 ; 
declined, 282 

Arthur of Connaught, Prince, met 
on British front, 269 

Atterbury, Gen. W. W., asked to ac- 
cept Director-Generalship of As- 
sociated National Red Cross, 318 

Askenazy, pronounced Assimilator, 
366 

Astor, John Jacob, dealings with, 46 

Astor, William Waldorf, 46; real 
estate transactions with, 54, 55 

Aupin, Count, meeting with, 330 

Baker, Elbert H., prophesies Wilson 
would carry Ohio by large major- 
ity, 245 

Baker, J. E., takes party of labour 
leaders to British front, 267 

Baker, Newton D., assures committee 
of high Democratic majority in 
Ohio, 245; letter declining to speak 
for League to Enforce Peace, 300 

Baker, Ray Stannard, at Peace Con- 
ference, 324 

Baldwin, Edward R., sails for Inter- 
national Red Cross Conference, 310 

Balfour, Arthur J., New York City's 
reception to, 253; at luncheon 
given by, in Paris, 341 

•Balfour Declaration, misunderstood 
by Zionists, 389 

Ball, Alwyn, Jr., realty dealings 
through, 55; aids in forming real 
estate trust company, 57 

Baltimore Convention, Wilson's nom- 
ination at, 146 

Baltimore Sun, favours Wilson at 
Baltimore Convention, 146 



442 



INDEX 



Bamberger-Delaware Gold Mine, in- 
vestment in, 51 

Bannard, Otto, defeated by Judge 
Gaynor, 279 

Bar, admission to the, 29 

Baring Brothers, influence of their 
failure on real estate transactions, 
48 

Barth, Herr, remark that Roosevelt 
could never remain out of politics, 
281 

Barton, Dr. James L., 175 

Baruch, Bernard M., valuable aid in 
securing campaign contributions, 
242 

Bauman, Mr., 51 

Beattie, C. J., met on British front, 267 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 15 

Behning, Henry, law case of, 31 

Bell, George W,, with Mitchel on 
campaign, 285 

Bellows, Henry W., 15 

Bennett, James Gordon, aids in sale 
of lots, 48; encounter with pugilist 
indirect cause of siding against 
Tammany, 113 

Berkowitz, Dr. Henry, not in favour 
of Zionist plans, 349 

Biddle, General, commanding Ameri- 
can troops on British front, 266 

Big Business, era of, 133 

Biggs, Dr. Hermann M., sails for 
International Red Cross Confer- 
ence, 310 

Billinski, M., talks on Jewish ques- 
tion, 374, 376 

Black, Mr., 72 

Blass, Robert, sings at Conried's 
funeral, 104 

Bliss, Cornelius N., Jr., on committee 
for financing the Red Cross, 249 

Bliss, Dr. Howard, invited on Pales- 
tine trip, 214; at Samaritan cere- 
monies, 229; at Arabian night, 231, 
232 

Bliss, General, on possibilities of an- 
other war, 335 

Bliss, George, real estate transactions 
with, 48, 49 

Bloomingdale & Co., position with, 18 

Blumstein, Louis M., real estate sold 
to, 42 

B'nai Brith Lodge, at Constantinople, 
205 

Bompard, M., French Ambassador at 
Constantinople, 183 

Bonne, Mrs. Josephine, 99 

Borah, antagonistic to Wilson, 130 

Brackett, Edgar T., presents argu- 
ment for impeachment at Sulzer 
trial, 172 



Brady, Anthony N., interested in 
formation of real estate trust com- 
pany, 59 

Brady, Peter, member "Committee of 
Safety," 107 

Bratiano, Roumanian premier, at 
Peace Conference, 326, 327 

Briand, Aristide, meeting with, 330; 
proposes to pay war debt by sale 
of lottery tickets in America, 331 

Bridgeport, Alabama, unfortunate 
investments at, 50 

British front, trip to, 266 

Broad Exchange Bldg., purchase of 
plots for site, 87 

Bronx House, Settlement work at, 
105, 106 

Brooklyn, emigration to, 5, 7 

Brown, Dr. Arthur Judson, 175 

Brown, Dr. Elmer R., in campaign of 
League to Enforce Peace, 301 

Brown, Prof. Philip M., in study of 
Armenian question, 337 

Bryan, William Jennings, candidacy 
against Wilson, 138; the "cocked- 
hat" letter, 140; at Jackson Day 
Dinner, 142; hazy ideas of diplom- 
acy, 174 

Bryant, Lieut.-Col. M. C, executive 
secretary Mission to Poland, 335; 
acts as secretary, 381 

Bryant, William Cullen, 16 

Bryce, Viscount, invited on Palestine 
trip, 216; his thirst for facts, 227; 
at the Samaritan ceremonies, 230; 
at Arabian night, 231 

Buchman, Albert, architect, 51 

Buckler, William H., study of Turk- 
ish problem with, at Peace Con- 
ference, 323; in study of the Turk- 
ish question, 336, 337 

Bureau of Public Information, be- 
ginnings of, 252 

Burleson, Albert S., assistance dur- 
ing campaign, 154; appointed 
Postmaster-General, 159; in dif- 
ficulties over New York Post- 
mastership, 237, 239 

Butler, Benjamin F., 26 

Butler, Prescott Hall, Boreel Bldg. 
purchased through, 87 

Butzel, Mr., acquaintance with, 25 

Cairo, arrival at, 220 

Campaign of 1916, financing, 236, 241 

Cannes, International Red Cross 

Conference at, 313 
Carpenter, Prof. William H., speaks 

at Conried's funeral, 105 
Carroll, John F., 9 



INDEX 



443 



Caruso, Enrico, engaged by Conried 
from phonograph records, 101 

Celluloid Piano Key Co., connection 
with, 32; investments in, 41 

Central Realty Bond & Trust Com- 
pany, organization, 57 et seq.; 
transactions of, 86; merged into 
Lawyers' Title Insurance Com- 
pany, 89 

Chadbourne, Thomas L., Jr., valuable 
aid in securing campaign contribu- 
tions, 242; at War Publicity meet- 
ing, 252 

Channing, Dr., extract from "Self- 
Denial" sermon, 16 

Charters, General, on British front, 
268 

Childs, William Hamlin, at War Pub- 
licity meeting, 253 

Chinese delegation to Peace Confer- 
ence, dinner given by, 324; their 
hopeless position, 325 

Choate, Joseph H., attorney for the 
Astors, 45; presiding at New York 
City's welcome to Joffre, Viviani, 
and Balfour, 254 

City College, preparation for, 9; en- 
trance, 11; withdrawal from, 13 

Clark, Champ, candidacy against 
Wilson, 138; at Jackson Day Din- 
ner, 142; at Baltimore Convention, 
146; over-confidence costs nomina- 
tion, 147; at the Sea Girt notifica- 
tion, 148 

Clemenceau, at signing of Peace 
Treaty, 336 

Cobb, Frank I., aids Wilson cause at 
Baltimore by New York World 
editorial, 146; at the Sulzer dinner, 
168; collaboration with on article 
showing Germany planned the war, 
296 

Coblenz, speech at, on the next war, 
332, 335; state of mind of the resi- 
dents, 333 

Cochran, Bourke, acquaintance with, 
25 

Coggeshall, Edward W., entertains 
proposition for increasing capital 
of Lawyers' Title Company, 67, 69 

Colby, Bainbridge, retained by Alex- 
ander in Equitable contest, 80, 81; 
on Board of Directors, Metropoli- 
tan Opera Company, 101 ; campaign 
for Wilson, 245 

College for Girls, Constantinople, 204, 
207 

Columbia Law School, attendance at, 

27 
"Committee of Safety," creation of, 
107 



Conkling, Roscoe, 113 

Conried, Heinrich, backing secured 
for Metropolitan Opera venture, 
99; engages Caruso from phono- 
graph records, 101 ; death, and im- 
pressive funeral, 104 

Constantinople arrival at, 177; tactics 
toward the "diplomatic set," 179; 
first impressions of, 186 

Cooke, Jay, in Panic of 1873, 20 

Cooper Union, address at, showing 
necessity of complete defeat of 
Germany, 298 

Cox, Governor, nominated for Presi- 
dency by state "bosses," 121 
a«r-Crane, Charles R., helps finance Wil- 
son campaign, 145; approves selec- 
tion of headquarters for 1916 cam- 
paign, 236; at dinner given by 
Chinese delegation to Peace Con- 
ference, 324 

Crawford, L. Cope, met on British 
front, 267 

Crimmins, John D., 22; real estate 
ventures of, 41, 42; interested in 
formation of real estate trust com- 
pany, 58; at the Sulzer dinner, 168 

Croker, Richard, acquaintance with, 
113 

Crowell, Ass't Sec'y of War, at din- 
ner to, in Paris, 337 

Cullen, Judge Edgar M., presiding 
at Sulzer impeachment, 172 

Cummings, Homer S., friendship 
with, 154; as the Demosthenes of 
the Democratic Party, 306 

Currie, Sir Arthur, lunch with on 
British front, 268; description of 
battle of Lens, 269 

Curtis, Dr. Holbrook, 103 

Curtis, Miss, met at Cannes, 327 

D'Abernon, Lord, at Balfour lunch- 
eon in Paris, 341 

D'Ankerswaerd, 188 

Dana, Charles A., 15 

Daniels, Josephus, friendship with, 
154; appointed Secretary of the 
Navy, 159; hopeless of success of 
1916 campaign, 235; at McCormick 
luncheon, 242; sails on the Levi- 
athan, 310 

Dardanelles, Major Tibbetts tells ex- 
periences, 268 

Davies, J. Clarence, in the "Subway 
Boom," 87 

Davies, Joseph E., friendship with, 
154 

Davison, Henry P., selected as Chair- 
man of Committee for financing the 
Red Cross, 250; dinner given Red 



444 



INDEX 



Cross delegates in Paris, 312; cable 
from, requesting attendance at In- 
ternational Red Cross Conference, 
308; organizing and directing spirit 
of International Red Cross Con- 
ference, 316; entreated to make 
Red Cross his life work, 316; mis- 
take of permitting other than 
American as Director-General, 319; 
proposes dinner to Governors of 
the League of Red Cross Societies, 
320; speaks at the dinner, 321 

Democracy — a master-passion, 351 

Deutsch, Bernard, 106 

Djemal, Colonel, 187 

Dmowski, Roman, at Paderewski 
dinner, 356; explains his Anti- 
Semitism, 357 

Dodge, Bayard, on Palestine trip, 
214 

Dodge, Cleveland H., helps finance 
Wilson campaign, 145; aid to 
Robert College, 208; invited on 
Palestine trip, 214; on committee 
for financing the Red Cross, 249 

Doheny, Edward L., contributes large 
sum to campaign fund, and gets 
it back by election bets, 242 

Domremy, visit to, 260 

Dora, trip to Hamburg on^ 22 

Doremus, Professor, 12 

Draper, Mrs. William K., speech at 
dinner to Governors of the League 
of the Red Cross Societies, 321 

Dreier, Miss Mary, member "Com- 
mittee of Safety," 107 

Drummond, Sir Eric, speech at din- 
ner to Governors of the League of 
the Red Cross Societies, 321 

Duel, Dr. Arthur B., with Mitchel on 
campaign, 285 

Dwight, Prof. Theodore W., 29 

Easter sacrifice of the Samaritans on 

Mount Gerizim, 228 
Eclectic Life Insurance Co., failure 

in Panic of 1873, 21 
Edison, Thomas A., at McCormick 

luncheon, 242 
Educational Alliance, Director of, 

105 
Egan, Dr. Maurice Francis, at Copen- 
hagen Legation, 19 
Egypt, Kitchener's explanation of 

Great Britain's policy in, 226 
Ehrich, William J., association with 

in realty ventures, 42 
Einhorn, Rabbi, 15, 128 
Elizabeth, Princess, at dinner with, 

326 



-Elkus, Abram I., work with factory 
investigation committee, 108; helps 
finance Wilson campaign, 145 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 15 
Emerson Society, organized, 98 
Enver Pasha, Turkish Minister of 
War, 185; direct dealings with, 197; 
asks advice, 202; of much interest 
to Kitchener, 225 
Equitable Insurance Co., the investi- 
gation, 79 et seq. 
Esher, Lord, arranges trip to British 

front, 266 
Evarts, William M., attorney for the 
Astors, 45 

Farley, Terrence, 41 

Federal Reserve Act, prevents con- 
centration and control of capital, 
83 

Filene, Edward A., in campaign of 
League to Enforce Peace, 301; at 
dinner given by Chinese delegation 
to Peace Conference, 324 

Finley, Dr. John H., 11 

Fisk and Hatch, in Panic of 1873, 20 

Flower, Roswell P., 118 

Ford, Henry, drives a hard bargain, 
242 

Fosdick, Raymond B., aids in pre- 
paring National Committee budget, 
153 

Foss, Mr., at Jackson Day Dinner, 
142 

Fox, Mortimer J., on trip to Constan- 
tinople, 177 

Franco-Prussian War, influences sen- 
timent in favour of Germans in 
New York, 8 

Frascara, Count, speech at dinner to 
Governors of the League of the 
Red Cross Societies, 321 

Eraser, Lovat, met on British front, 
267 

Free Synagogue, resignation from, 
293 

Freedman, Andrew, connection with 
Richard Croker, 115 

French front, visit to, 259 

Fuller Construction Co., financing of, 
71 

Garfield, President, influence of as- 
sassination on real estate market, 
41 

Garrels, Consul, 219 

Gates, Dr., president of Robert Col- 
lege, 204, 208 

Gawa, Prof. Arata Nina, speech at 
dinner to Governors of the League 
of the Red Cross Societies, 321 



INDEX 



445 



Gaynor, William J., an opponent, 34 

George, Lloyd, seeks Wilson's favour 
through Admiral Grayson, 331; at 
signing of Peace Treaty, 336 

Germans, early prejudice against, in 
New York, 8 

Germany: entering on career of Im- 
perialism, 23 
- i Gibson, Hugh, asked to report on 
Poland's treatment of Jews, 352; 
at Paderewski dinner, 356 
-<- Giers, Michel de, Russian Ambassa- 
dor at Constantinople, 183 

Gildersleeve, Henry A., acquaintance 
with, 25 

Glass, Franklin P., at conference over 
Wilson's "cocked-hat" letter, 140 

Glass, Senator Carter, reason for his 
appointment as secretary of Demo- 
cratic National Committee, 244 

Godkin, Lawrence, 15 

Goelet, Robert, on Board of Direc- 
tors of Metropolitan Opera Com- 
pany, 100 

Gold mine, investment in, 51 

Goldsmith, Abraham, partnership 
with, 33, 42 

Goodhart, Capt. Arthur L., Counsel 
with Mission to Poland, 355; at 
reception in Warsaw, 365 

Gould, George J., on Board of Direc- 
tors Metropolitan Opera Company, 
100 

Gouraud, General, Pershing renews 
acquaintance of, at Verdun, 266 
•» Grabski, conference with, on condi- 
tions in Poland, 358 

Grand Central Station, construction 
of, 8 

Grasty, Charles H., aids Wilson at 
Baltimore Convention, 146 

Grayson, Admiral, telegram to, re- 
garding Wilson's attitude toward 
Lane as Director-General of Inter- 
national Red Cross, 318; dinner 
with Lloyd George, 332 

Greeley, Horace, 15 

Green, Andrew H., appointed Comp- 
troller of City of New York, 113 

Greene, Colonel Warwick, declines 
membership of commission to in- 
vestigate treatment of Jews in 
Poland, 352, 354 
Gregory, Attorney General, sends 
deputies to New Hampshire to en- 
force election laws, 247 

Gregory, Eliot, on Board of Directors 

Metropolitan Opera Company, 101 

Grew, Joseph C, cables to obtain 

American opinion of Jew serving 



on commission to investigate Polish 
pogroms, 353 

Groshents, M., patriot of Thann, 261 

Grosscup, Mr., 139 

Grant, Hugh J., interested in forma- 
tion of real estate trust company, 
58; aids in financing of Fuller 
Construction Co., 71 ; advises pur- 
chase of Bareel Bldg., 86; had no 
fear of panic, 88; interested in 
Underwood Typewriter Company, 
91 
'Guggenheim, Daniel, 100 

Guggenheimer, Randolph, 100 

Guizat, Count de Witt, entertained 
by, on trip to French front, 262 

Gutherz, Dr., 3 

Haig, Sir Douglas, arranges meeting 
with Sir Arthur Currie, 269; why 
he did not capture Lens, 271; 
record of meeting with, 271 

Hall, A. Oakey, Mayor of New York 
City under Tweed, 109 

Hall, Dr., quotation from, 16 

Hamburg, trip on sailing vessel to, 22 

Hamlin, Dr., work at Robert College, 
208 

Hammerstcin, Oscar, realty dealings 
with, 43 

Hammill, Dr. Samuel M., sails for 
International Red Cross Confer- 
ence, 310 

Hankey, Sir Maurice, at Balfour 
luncheon in Paris, 341 

Hanna, Mark, in control of Repub- 
lican Party, 122 

Harbord, Major-General, meeting 
with in France, 273; induced to ac- 
cept Armenian Mission, 337; helps 
select military member of mission 
to Poland, 354 

Harbord Commission to Armenia, 
negotiations for appointment, 336, 
337, 338; report giving reasons for 
and against America accepting 
Armenian mandate, 343 
-Harriman, E. H., financing of Union 
Pacific, 77; attitude toward Equit- 
able controversy, 82 

Hartman, Judge Anthony, 39 

Hartman, Miss Rosina, studies under, 
10 

Harvey, Col. George, disagreement 
with Wilson, 149 

Haskell, Col. William N., appointed 
to head resident commission to 
Armenia, 342 

Havemeyer, Henry O., realty ven- 
tures, 42; interested in formation 
of real estate trust company, 58 



446 



INDEX 



Hays, Will H., success as Republican 
National Chairman, 126 

Hearst, William Randolph, at Jack- 
son Day Dinner, 142 

Heins, L-ouis F., 116 

"Hell's Kitchen," experiences with 
tenants in, 40 

Henderson, General David, becomes 
Director-General of International 
Red Cross, 320; speech at dinner 
to Governors of the League of the 
Red Cross Societies, 321 

Henry Street Settlement, 105 

Herrick, Myron T., urges acceptance 
of Ambassadorship to Turkey, 161 

Hilton, Frederick M., transaction 
with, 86 

Hilton, Hughes & Co., difficulties of, 
36 

Hirsch, Solomon, 162 

Hirsdansky, Simon, 106 

HoflFman, John T., made Governor by 
Tweed, 109, 110 

Holley, Abner B., instructor in 
mathematics, 10 

Hollis, Senator, at dinner given by 
Chinese delegation to Peace Con- 
ference, 324 

Holt, Dr. L. Emmett, sails for Inter- 
national Red Cross Conference, 310 

Holy Land, visit to the, 212 

Homer, Mme., sings at Conried's 
funeral, 104 

Hoover, Herbert, meeting with in 
Paris, 312; recommends appoint- 
ment of Harbord Armenian Mis- 
sion, 338; not in favour of America 
accepting mandate over Armenia, 
340; urges Wilson to appoint 
commission to investigate treat- 
ment of Jews in Poland, 352; State 
dinner given to, by Paderewski, 
377 

Hoskins, Dr. Franklin, invited on 
Palestine trip, 214; at Caves of 
Machpelah, 218; profound Biblical 
scholar, 227; at Samaritan cere- 
monies, 229; at Arabian night, 231 

House, Colonel, Wilson's confidence 
in, 154; approves selection of head- 
quarters for 1916 Campaign, 236; 
his relationship with President 
Wilson, 239; at Peace Conference, 
327; at signing of Peace Treaty, 
336 if^ 

Houston, Secretary, applauds cam- 
paign of League to Enforce Peace, 
300 

Hudspeth, Judge, 121, 139 

Hughes, Chas. Kvans, conducts insur- 
ance investigation, 79, 83; at War 



Publicity meeting, 252; urges 
Mitchel's reelection at City Hall 
Park mass meeting, 284; signs cable 
to Wilson appealing for help for 
Armenia, 340; speaks at Madison 
Square Garden meeting of protest 
against treatment of Jews ia 
Poland, 352 

Hughes, Congressman, 139 

Huntington, Collis P., real estate 
dealings with, 52 

Hyde, Henry B., organizes Equitable 
Life Insurance Co., 79 

Hyde, James Hazen, head of Equit- 
able Life Insurance Co., 66; insur- 
ance irregularities, 78; personal 
weakness, 79; efforts in Paris to 
assist in World War, and work 
with the Red Cross, 84 

Ibrahim Bey, 189 
-Ickelheimer, Henry R., 100 
International Red Cross Conference, 

310 
Izzett, General, 187 

Jackson, Charles A., 120 

•Jackson Day Dinner, of 1912, Wil- 
son's success at, 138 

Jacob-ben-Aaron, High Priest of 
Samaritans, 228 

Jadwin, General Edgar, on commis- 
sion to investigate treatment of 
Jews in Poland, 352; selected by 
Pershing, 354; at Paderewski din- 
ner to Hoover, 378 

Jarlsberg, Count Wedel, speech at 
dinner to Governors of the League 
of the Red Cress Societies, 321 

Jarvie, James N., on board of direc- 
tors of real estate trust company, 
61; opponent of Havemeyer, 65, 69; 
interested in Underwood Type- 
writer Co., 91 

Jastrow, Prof. Morris, not in favour 
of Zionist plans, 349 

Jaubert, Captain, in charge of trip 
to French front, 259 

Jews, influence of, discrimination 
against, in failure of Hilton, 
Hughes & Co., 38; send commission 
to Peace Conference, 348; oppor- 
tunities boundless in America, 399 
'Jews, atrocities against, in Poland, 
351; Hugh Gibson asked to report 
on, 352; Wilson appoints commis- 
sion to investigate, 352; objections 
against Jew serving on commission, 
353 

Jewish members of Polish Parlia- 
ment, 361 



INDEX 



U% 



^Jewish question, the, article in New 
York Times, 289 

JofFre, Marshal, New York City's 
reception to, 253; pleads for sight 
of American uniforms in Paris, 
256; meeting at his Paris head- 
quarters, 262 

Johnson, Frederick, 116 

Johnson, George F., 116 

Johnson, Homer H., at dinner given 
by, in Paris, 337; on commission to 
investigate treatment of Jews in 
Poland, 352 

Johnson, Joseph, appointment as 
Postmaster prevented, 238 

Joline, Adrian H., "cocked-hat" letter 
from Wilson, 140 

Jones Estate, Joshua, purchase of 
lots in, 47 

Jordan, Thomas N., 68 

Judson, Dr. Henry Pratt, dinner to, 
299 

Juilliard, A. D., on board of direc- 
tors of real estate trust company, 
61, 66, 69 

^ Kahn, Congressman Julius, on com- 
mittee to present views of Ameri- 
can Jews on Zionism to Peace Con- 
ference, 350 
Kahn, Otto H., on Board of Direc- 
tors Metropolitan Opera Company, 
100 
Kahri Jeh Janisi, oldest mosque in 

Constantinople, 187 
Kelly, John, succeeds Tweed as Tam- 
many leader, 112 
Kennedy, John S., aid to Robert 

College, 208 
Kenyon, Cox & Co., in Panic of 1873, 

20 
Kerenski, at Peace Conference, 323 
Kergolay, Count, speech at dinner to 
Governors of the League of the 
Red Cross Societies, 320 
Khedive of Egypt, provides for wel- 
come at Alexandria, 219; official 
call on, 221; as a modern business 
man, 222 
Kiernan, Lawrence D., 9 
Kilpatrick, Frank, realty dealings 

with, 45 
Kilpatrick, "Walter, realty dealings 

with, 45 
Kingsbury, John A., member "Com- 
mittee of Safety," 107 
Kitchener, Lord, meeting with, in 
Egypt, 210; anomalous position in 
Egypt, 220; meeting with, 221; 
luncheon with, 224 



Knickerbocker Real Estate Co., deal- 
ings with, 42 

Knox Bldg., purchase of, 87 

Koenig, Samuel S., at Sulzer dinner, 
168 
^Kuhn, Loeb & Co., rise in banking 
circle, 77 

Kurzman, Ferdinand, in law office of, 
12; rc'cmployment by, 18; method 
of dispossessing undesirable ten- 
ant, 39 

Lachraan, Samson, 33; realty ven- 
tures with, 42; elected Judge of 
Sixth District Court, 120 
Lachman, Morgenthau & Goldsmith, 
formation of partnership, 34; with- 
drawal from the firm, 56 
Lamont, Dan, his friendship with 

Grover Cleveland, 118 
Lamont, Thomas, at dinner given by 
Chinese delegation to Peace Con- 
ference, 324 
^Landman, Rabbi Isaac, on committee 
to present views of American Jews 
on Zionism to Peace Conference, 
350 
Lane, Franklin K., donation to cam- 
paign fund, 242; writes Red Cross 
proclamation, 251 ; approves cam- 
paign of League to Enforce Peace, 
300; proposed as Director-General 
of International Red Cross, 318; 
considered for head of corporation 
to finance Poland, 381 
Lansing, Secretary of State, at Pad- 
erewski dinner, 356; letter of in- 
structions to Mission to Poland, 
359 
Lansing, Mrs., at signing of Peace 

Treaty, 336 
Lauzanne, Stephane, arranges lunch- 
eon with Bunau Varilla, 330 
Lawyers' Mortgage Company, in- 
crease of capital stock, 70, 71 
Lawyers' Title Company, increase of 

capital stock, 67-71 
League to Enforce Peace, work 
against future wars, 300; travelling 
in campaign of, 301; pronounce- 
ment on the League of Nations 
Covenant, 303 
Leisenring, John, 26 
Leishmann, John G. A., meeting with 

at Aix-les-Bains, 85 
Lens, General Currie's description of 
battle, 269; why Sir Douglas Haig 
refrained from capturing, 271 
Lenox, James, 22 
^fLetoviski, Major, leader of Jewish 
massacre at Pinsk, 369 



^48 



INDEX 



Lewin, Rabbi, on Jewish question in 

Poland, 375 
Liberty Loan, and United War Worli 

Drives, travelling in behalf of, 295 
Lloyd, Bishop Arthur Selden, 175 
Lodge, Henry Cabot, signs cable to 

Wilson appealing for help for 

Armenia, 340 
Loeb, Solomon, realty ventures, 42 
Loewl, Valentine, 30 
Lord, Dr. Robert, at Peace Confer- 
ence, 324 
Low, Sydney, met on British front, 

267 
Lowell, President in campaign of 

League to Enforce Peace, 301; in 

a foot race with, 302 

Macauley, Captain, of the Scorpion, 
219 

Machpelah, Caves of, visit to, 213, 
217 

Mackay, Clarence H., on Board of 
Directors Metropolitan Opera 
Company, 100 

Mackaye, Dr., 175 

Macy, R. H., & Co., business secured 
by Isidor Straus and his sons, 36 

Mahmoud Tahgri Bey, acting Gov- 
ernor of Alexandria, 219 

Mahmoud Tewfik Hamid, 232 

Mahmoud Pasha, 189 

Malcolm, Ian, speech at dinner to 
Governors of the League of the 
Red Cross Societies, 320 

Mallet, Sir Louis, British Ambas- 
sador at Constantinople, 183; re- 
newal of acquaintance with, 336 

Malone, Dudley Field, at conference 
over Wilson's "cocked-hat" letter, 
140; brings message from Wilson 
on McCombs-Newton rupture, 145 

Mannes, David, 106 

Mannheim, early life in, 1, 333 

Manning, Dan, 118 

Mardighian, Osman, 187 

Marie, Princess, at dinner with, 326 

Marling, Alfred E., 175 

Marsh, Benjamin C, Secretary Com- 
mittee on Congestion of Population 
in New York City, 107 

Marshall, T. R., at Jackson Day 
Dinner, 142 

Marshall, Louis, at Sulzer dinner, 
168; objects to Jew serving on 
Commission to investigate Polish 
pogroms, 353 

Martin, Riccardo, sings at Conried's 
funeral, 104 

Meyer, Peter F., 48; connection with 
Richard Croker, 113 



Metaxa, Dr., arranges meeting with 
Venizelos, 328 

Metropolitan Opera Company, formed 
for Conried, 100 

Metropolitan Opera House, gather- 
ing on President Wilson's return 
from Paris, 304 

Miller, Cyrus C, elected Borough 
President of the Bronx, 118 

Mitchel, John Purroy, ii) the Post- 
mastership controversy, 237; cam- 
paign for preparedness irritating 
to President Wilson, 238; at War 
Publicity meeting, 252; has good 
business offer but decides to re- 
main in politics, 279; asks advice 
on Mayoralty campaign, 278; 
elected Mayor of City of New 
York, 283; asks advice as to run- 
ning again, 283; his death in his 
country's service, 286 

MacDowell, Miss, in Settlement work, 
105 

MacNulty, Mr., 35 

McAdoo, William G., in Wilson's 
campaign, 137; drops his business 
to aid Wilson's candidacy, 154; ap- 
pointed Secretary of the Treasury, 
159; apprehensive of outcome of 
1916 campaign, 235; dejection at 
unfavourable election returns, 246 

McAneny, George A., considered for 
Mayor on fusion ticket, 280; not a 
vote-getter, 281 

McCall, Mr., power in finance, 78 

McCombs, William F., in charge of 
Wilson campaign, 137, 139; con- 
troversy with Byron Newton, 145 

McCormick, Chancellor, on Palestine 
trip, 215 

McCormick, Vance, bosses object to, 
121; named Chairman of Demo- 
cratic Campaign Committee, 241 ; 
dinner to Henry Ford, Thos. A. 
Edison, and Josephus Daniels, 242; 
on committee for financing the Red 
Cross, 249 

McCurdy, Richard A., incensed af 
not being asked to participate in 
capital increase of Lawyers' Title 
Company, 69; power in finance, 78; 
misuse of insurance funds, 83 

McCurdy, R. H., on Board of Direc- 
tors of Metropolitan Opera Com- 
pany, 100 

Mclntire, Alfred, 19, 30 

Mclntyre, William H., on Board of 
Directors Metropolitan Opera 
Company, 101 

McManus, Thomas F., 116 

Mohammed V, a weakling, 184i 



INDEX 



44D 



Moncheur, Baroness, 188 

Montefiore, Claude, representing 
Jews of France at Peace Con- 
ference, 350 

Moore, Judge, 121, 122 

Moore, Mrs. Philip North, in cam- 
paign of League to Enforce Peace, 
301 

Morgan, J. Pierpont, his power in 
finance, 76 

Morgan, Miss Anne, member "Com- 
mittee of Safety", 107 

Morgenthau, Henry, Jr., at Sea 
Girt, 148 

Morgenthau, Mrs., arrival in Turkey, 
194 

Morgenthau Company, Henry, forma- 
tion, 89 

Morton, Levi P., real estate transac- 
tions with, 48; assists at auction 
sale, 49 

Mott, John R., conversation with, on 
after-the-war work, 316 

Mt. Sinai Hospital, on Board of Di- 
rectors, 10.5 

Munsey, Frank, at War Publicity 
meeting, 253 

Murphy, Arthur D., defeated for 
Borough President of Bronx, 116 

Murphy, Charles F., selected by 
Croker to head Tammany, 116 

Murphy, Major, with Red Cross in 
France, 86 

Nabulus, Governor of, arranges an 
Arabian night, 231 

Nahoun, Chief Rabbi, 205 

New York, arrival in, 6, 7 

New York Sun, comment on heading 
of Red Cross Magazine article, 289 

New York Times, article on the Jew- 
ish question, 289; Washington des- 
patch to, 293; publishes speech 
made at dinner of Executive Com- 
mittee of Wise Centenary Fund, 
294; article, "Emperor William 
Must Go," 297; article, "A Vision 
of the Red Cross After the War," 
808; article on departure as dele- 
gate to International Red Cross 
Conference, 308 

New York World, article showing 
Germany planned the war, 296 

Newton, Byron, controversy with 
McCombs, 145 

Nilsson, Christine, 12 

Norton, Chas. D., on Committee for 
financing the Red Cross, 249 

Norton, Patrick, excavation con- 
tractor, 61, 52 



Nugent, difficulty with, over tickets 
for Jackson Day Dinner, 139 

O'Connor, Charles, 29 

O'Gorman, Senator James A., at 
Jackson Day Dinner, 142; friend- 
ship with, 154; transmits Wilson's 
offer of Ambassadorship to Tur- 
key, 159; fearful of Wilson's re- 
election in 1916, 235 

O'Toole, Morgan, 27 
^chs, Adolph S., as example of op- 
portunity, 400 

Ogden, D. B., entertains proposition 
to increase capital of Lawyers' 
Title Company, 67 

Olcott, Frederick P., interested in 
formation of real estate trust com- 
pany, 58; a power in finance, 65; 
aids in increasing capital of Law- 
yers' Title Company, 68; in rail- 
road reorganizations, 78; questioned 
as to attitude if panic should ensue, 
88 

Ottendorfer, Oswald, realty trans- 
actions with, 45 

Otto, Major Henry S., with Mission 
to Poland, 355 

Outerbridge, E. H., urges acceptance 
of nomination for President of the 
Borough of Manhattan, 278; urges 
Mitchel's reelection at City Hall 
Park mass meeting, 284 

/Paderewski, asks Wilson to appoint 
commission to investigate treat- 
ment of Jews in Poland, 3.52; gives 
dinner at the Ritz, 355; efforts to 
assure people he was not Anti- 

~- Semitic, 377; gives state dinner to 
Hoover, 877; impressions of, at 
dinner to Hoover, 379; holds up 

- financing of Poland, 881 

Paderewska, Mme., at dinner given 
to Hoover, 378 

Page, Thomas Nelson, meeting with 
in Paris, 255 
-Page, Walter Hines, introduced by 
Woodrow Wilson, 136 

Painleve, meeting with, 85; at review 
of first American troops in France, 
256; dining with, 257 

Palestine, visit to, 212; prominent 
Jews not in favour of Zionist pro- 
ject of National home, 849; true 
meaning of Balfour Declaration, 
889; significance of Sir Herbert 
Samuel's appointment, 392; not 
suitable for colonization, 393 

Pallavicini, Marquis, Austrian Am- 
bassador at Constantinople, 182 



450 



INDEX 



Panic of 1873, 20 

Parish, Henry, realty dealings with, 
55 

Park, Trenor W., 63 

Parker, Judge Alton B., at Jackson 
Day Dinner, 142; of counsel at 
Sulzer impeachment, 172 

"Parsifal," diflSculties encountered in 
production, 102 

Parsons, John E., realty ventures, 42 

Patri, Angelo, 106 

Patrick, Dr. Mary Mills, president 
Constantinople College for Girls, 
204, 207 

Patrick, Mason M., considered for 
Mission to Poland, 355 

Peabody, Charles A., realty dealings 
through, 55 

Peace Conference, impressions of, 322 

Peace Treaty, signing of, 336 

Pears, Sir Edwin, 188 

Peet, Dr. W. W., work in Constan- 
tinople, 205; missionary activities, 
211; gives information on Palestine, 
213; invited to accompany party, 
214; at Arabian night, 231 

Penrose, Senator, assumes leadership 
of Republican machine, 125; will- 
ing to wreck party's chances to in- 
jure Roosevelt, 150 

Perlmutter, Rabbi, calls on Mission 
at Warsaw, 361 

Perkins, George W., member "Com- 
mittee of Safety," 107; at War 
Publicity meeting, 253 

Perkins, Major, with Red Cross in 
France, 86 

Perkins, Miss Frances, member 
"Committee of Safety," 107 

Persian delegation to Peace Confer- 
ence, their hopeless position, 325 

Pershing, General, meeting with in 
Paris, 255; lauded by Joffre, 264; 
letter from, explaining postpone- 
ment of dinner, 264; his descrip- 
tion of battle of Verdun, 265; 
meeting with at headquarters in 
France, 273; at signing of Peace 
Treaty, 336; selects military mem- 
ber of Mission to Poland, 354 

Phillip, Hoffman, Conseiller and 
First Secretary, American Em- 
bassy, Constantinople, 177, 187 

Philipson, Rev. Dr. David, not in 
favour of Zionist plans, 349 

Phillips, L. J., 48 

Phoenix Insurance Co., position with, 

18 

y Pilsudski, Dictator of Poland, 115; 

not in favour of Mission to Poland, 

360; at reception in Warsaw, 364; 



"no pogroms, nothing but unavoid- 
able accidents," 371 ; talks with on 
Jewish question, 372, 375; change 
of attitude toward Commission, 
378; his story of his rise to power, 
378 

Pinchot, Amos, member "Committee 
of Safety," 107 

Pinsk, investigations in, 369 

Piatt, Frank, retained by Alexander 
in Equitable Insurance contest, 80, 
81 

Plaza Hotel, purchase of, 87 

Plumb, Preston, 26 

Poincarg, President, at review of 
first American troops in France, 
256; at signing of Peace Treaty, 
336 
/Poland, atrocities against the Jews, 
351 ; question of Jewish nationalism 
in, 351 ; plan to finance, 380 

Poland, Mission to, formation of, 
352; ideal to be accomplished, 358; 
Lansing's letter of instructions, 
359; arrival in Warsaw, 360 

Politics, first entry into, 111 

Politis, M., arranges meeting with 
Venizelos, 328 

Polk, Frank L., doubt of success of 
1916 campaign, 235 

Pomerene, Atlee, at Jackson Day 
Dinner, 142 

Ponydreguin, General, dinner with at 
Gondrecourt, 259 

Post, James H., aids in formation of 
real estate trust company, 58 

Postmastership at New York, con' 
tention regarding, 237 

Power, Judge Maurice J., "dis- 
coverer" of Grover Cleveland, 118 

Prendergast, William A., at War 
Publicity meeting, 253; slated for 
Comptroller on fusion ticket, 280 

Pryor, Gen. Roger A., 29, 30 

Pyne, Percy R., retires from presi- 
dency of National City Bank, 76 

Quekemeyer, Captain, American rep- 
resentative on trip to French front, 
266 

Radcliffe, General, met on British 
front, 269 

Rappard, Dr., William, speech at 
dinner to Governors of the League 
of the Red Cross Societies, 321 

Raymond, Henry T., 15 

Reading, Lord, address before Mer- 
chants' Association in New York, 
298 

Real Estate, ventures in, 39 



INDEX 



451 



Red Cross, financing the, insisting 
on aiming for large sum, 249; 
article "A Vision of the Red Cross 
After the War," 308; the Interna- 
tional Conference, 308 
Red Cross Magazine article on Turk- 
ish massacres, 288 
R^dfield, Congressman, appointed 

Secretary of Commerce, 154, 159 
Reilly, John, buys lots on route of 

Subway, 50 
Rice, Edwin T., 93 
Richardson, Captain, 'Forty-niner, 4 
Robert College, Constantinople, 186, 

204, 208 
Rockefeller, William, how he obtained 

stock of Northern Pacific, 71 
Rockefeller, Mrs. John D., Jr., ac- 
tivities in war work, 299 
Rosalsky, Judge Otto, at Sulzer din- 
ner, 168 
Rosenwald, Julius, on committee for 

financing the Red Cross, 250 
Roosevelt, Franklin D., doubt of suc- 
cess of 1916 campaign, 235 
Roosevelt, Theodore, deference to 
Mark Hanna, 123; coaches Taft for 
campaign, 124; split in Republican 
party forfeits election, 150; Joffre 
anecdote of, 264; calls meeting of 
New York Progressives to agree 
on fusion slate, 280; his first dem- 
onstration of power, 282; urges 
Mitchel's reglection at City Hall 
Park mass meeting, 284, 285 
Root, Elihu, associated with in diffi- 
culties of Hilton, Hughes & Co., 
37; policy of business and politics, 
37; consulted on Equitable con- 
troversy, 82; signs cable to Wilson 
appealing for help for Armenia, 
340 
Rose, William R., 54 
Roumania, question of Jewish nation- 
alism in, 351 
Roux, Dr. Emile, at International 
Red Cross Conference, 315 
>Rubenstein, Rabbi, recounts history 
of Vilna excesses against Jews, 362 
Russell, Colonel, sails for Interna- 
tional Red Cross Conference, 310 
Russell, Judge Horace, retained by, 

36 
Ryan, Thomas, 39 

Said Halim, Prince, Grand Vizier, 

221, 225 
Samaritans, visit to the tribe on 

Mount Gerizim, 228 



Samuel, Sir Herbert, significance of 
appointment as first governing 
head of Palestine ,392 
Sassoon, Sir Philip, private secretary 

of Sir Douglas Haig, 272 
Sayre, Dr., on Palestine trip, 216 
/SchifiF, Jacob H., on Board of Direc- 
tors Metropolitan Opera Company, 
100; gives evidence against Sulzer 
at impeachment trial, 173; mis- 
fortune at a dinner, 299; advises 
attendance at International Red 
Cross Conference, 308 
Schmavonian, A. K., attache at 
American Embassy, Constantinople, 
178, 187; on Palestine trip, 215, 
231; on trip to French front, 259; 
to British front, 266 
Schurz, Carl, on Independent politics, 

135 
Schwab, Chas. M., buys stock in 

Fuller Construction Co., 72 
Sebastiyeh, visit to, 231 
Seligman, Joseph, refused accommo- 
dations in Saratoga hotel, 38; pres- 
ident Society for Ethical Culture, 
95 
Senior, Max, not in favour of Zionist 

plans, 349 
Settlement work, in Manhattan and 

the Bronx, 105 
Seymour, Harriet, 106 
ShafiFer, Chauncey, in law office of, 24 
Sharp, Ambassador, at review of 
first American troops in France, 
256 
Shaw, Peggy, maintaining soldiers' 
theatre and rest room at Treves, 
333 
Shufro, Jacob, 106 
Sibert, General, in command at Gon- 

drecourt, 259 
Siegel-Cooper & Company, opening of 

New York Store, 54 
Sigerson, Michael, 111 
Simon, Robert E., in the "Subway 

Boom," 87; partnership with, 89 
Sinclair, General, met on British 

front, 269 
Singer Sewing Machine Co., in Con- 
stantinople, 203 
Skrzynski, M., at reception in War- 
saw, 365; at luncheon, 376 
Slocum, Gen. Henry W., 118 
Smith, Alfred E., chairman of fac- 
tory investigating committee, 108; 
recommended for New York Post- 
mastership, 240 
Smith, J. Henry, on Board of Direc- 
tors Metropolitan Opera Company, 
101 



^52 



INDEX 



Society of Ethical Culture, formation, 
95 

Southack, Frederick, aids in forming 
real estate trust company, 57 

Southmayd, Henry M., attorney for 
the Astors, 45 

Spanish-American War, influence of, 
on real estate transactions, 54, 56 

Speer, Mrs. Emma Bailey, in war 
work, 299 

St. Patrick's Cathedral, construction 
of, 8 

Stanchfield, John B., of Counsel at 
Sulzer impeaclimcnt, 172 

Standard Oil Co., in Constantinople, 
203 

Stanislawa, investigations at, 367 

Stanley, Sir Arthur, instrumental in 
selection of Englishman as Direc- 
tor-General of International Red 
Cross, 319 

Stewart, A. T., & Co., 36 

Stillman, James, on Executive Com- 
mittee of real estate trust company, 
61; a power In finance, 65; inter- 
ested in increasing capital of 
Lawyers' Title Company, 68, 70; 
aids in financing of Fidler Con- 
struction Co., 71 ; becomes president 
of National City Bank, 76; attitude 
toward Equitable controversy, 81 ; 
offers backing in case of panic, 88; 
wise advice of, 180 

Stimson, Henry L., Chairman "Com- 
mittee of Safety," 108 

Stone, Senator, call on Wilson's cam- 
paign managers, 143; at the Sulzer 
dinner, 168 

Storrs, Richard S., 15 

Stowell, Edgar, 106 

Straight, Willard D., at War Pub- 
licity meeting, 253 

Straus, Isidor, incident of formation 
of firm Ahraliam & Straus, 34; 
secures business of R. H. Macy & 
Co., 36 

Straus, Natlian, early friendship with, 
3; dry goods business of, 35, 36 

Strauss, Cliarles, transactions witli, 89 

Strong, Colonel, plans for Interna- 
tional Red Cross preferred by 
Davison, 312, 315; at Cannes, 327 

Subway, routes being laid out for, 47 

Sulzer, WUliam, experiences with, 
155; inaugurated Governor of New 
York, 162; dinner given to, 163; 
beneficial legislation and wise ap- 
pointments, 164; defies Tammany 
Hall, 167; the Cafe Boulevard 
Dinner, and "the wish-bone speech," 



168; impeached and removed from 

office, 170 
Sykes, Josephine, 99 
Syrian Protestant College, visit to, 233 

Taft, William H., coached for cam- 
paign by Roosevelt, 124; work for 
League to Enforce Peace, 301, et 
seq; speech on the Covenant at 
Metropolitan Opera House gather- 
•ing, 305; advises attendance at In- 
ternational Red Cross Conference, 
308 

Talaat Bey, real ruler of Turkey, 185, 
187, 191; arranges reception at 
Adrianople, 192; direct dealings 
with, 19T; asks advice, 108; looks 
to comfort of party on Palestine 
trip, 231 

Talbot, Dr., Fritz B., sails for In- 
ternational Red Cross Conference, 
310 

Talmage, T. De Witt, 15 

Tariff, Protective, a blow to family 
fortunes, 4 

Taussig, Professor, at dinner given 
by Chinese delegation to Peace 
Conference, 324 

Thalman, Ernest, 100 

Thann, visit to, on trip to the front, 261 

Tibbetts, Major, met on British front, 
268 

Tilden, Samuel J., effects downfall 
of Tweed Ring, 111 

Tilton, Henry, 30 

Tourtel, H. 13. met on British front, 
267 

Townroe, Captain, conducts trip to 
British front, 266 

Townsend, Col. C. M., met, after 
many years on British front, 267 

Tsulski, Dr., conference with, on con- 
ditions in Poland, 358 

Tumulty, Joseph, at conference over 
Jefferson Day Dinner tickets, 139; 
at Sea Girt notification, 148 

Turkish question, study of, 336 

Tweed Ring, contact with, 109 

Underbill, Senator, at Jackson Day 
Dinner, 142 

Underwood, John T., transactions 
with, 90; tenders John Purroy 
Mitchel vice-presidency of his com- 
pany, 279 

Underwood, Oscar, candidacy against 
Wilson, 138 

Underwood Typewriter Co., capitali- 
zation of, 90 

"Union for Higher Life," member of, 
97 



INDEX 



453 



Van Dyke, Dr. Henry, in campaign 
of League to Enforce Peace, 301 

Vanderbilt, Alfred G., on Board of 
Directors Metropolitan Opera Com- 
pany, 100 

^'arilla, Bunau, at luncheon with, 330 

Vendome, Due de, acquaintance with 
at Peace Conference, 826, 327 

Vendome, Duchess of, met at Cannes, 
327 

Venizelos, at Peace Conference, 328; 
discussion with on Smyrna ques- 
tion, 329 

Vesnitz, representing Jugo-Slavia at 
Peace Conference, 327 

Vilna, investigations in, 370 

Vimy Ridge, visited during battle of 
Lens, 271 

Viviani, Rene, New York City's re- 
ception to, 253 

Von Moltke, General, at launching 
of Germany's first battlesliip, 24 

Webb, Gen. Alexander S., 12 

Whitall, Dr. Samuel S., influence of, 
15 

Wadsworth, Eliot, on committee for 
financing the Red Cross, 249 

Wagner, Robert E., vice-chairman of 
factory investigation committee, 
108; recommended for New York 
Postmastership, 240 

Wald, Lillian D., and Henry Street 

, Settlement, 105; introduces Sidney 
Webb, 120 

Wallace, Dr. Louise B., dean of Con- 
stantinople College for Girls, 204 

Wallace, Hugh C, friendship with, 
154 

Wanamaker, John, succeeds to orig- 
inal business of A. T. Stewart & 
Co., 38 

Wangenheim, Baron, complains 
against American ammunition, 24; 
German Ambassador at Constan- 
tinople, 182 

Washburn, Dr., work at Robert Col- 
lege, 208 

Waterlow, Lady, met at Cannes, 327 

Watson, Dr. Charles Roger, 175 

Webb, Sidney, interview with an 
American political "boss," 120 

Weber, M., patriot of Thann, 261 

Wechsler & Abraham, incident of 
dissolution of partnership, 34 

Weitz, Dr. Paul, emissary of German 
and Austrian Ambassadors, 181 

Welch, Dr. William H., sails to at- 
tend International Red Cross Con- 
ference, 310; on Council of Nation- 
al Defense, 311; speech at dinner 



to Governors of the League of the 
Red Cross Societies, 321 

Wells, RoUo, friendship with, 154 

Wertheim, Jacob, aids in financing 
Underwood Typewriter Co., 92 

Wertheim, Maurice, 92 

White, George, member of Demo- 
cratic National Committee, 122 

White, Henry, arranges meeting with 
Venizelos, 329 

White, Richard Grant, study under, 
98 

Whiting, Richard, makes flashlight 
photographs of Samaritan cere- 
monies, 228 

Whitman, District Attorney, at Sul- 
zer dinner, 168; slated for Mayor 
of New York on fusion ticket, 280, 
281 

Whitney, H. P., on Board of Direc- 
tors of Metropolitan Opera Com- 
pany, 100 

Whitney, William C, fight against 
Kelly, Tammany leader, 112 

Willcox, William R., at War Pub- 
licity meeting, 252 

Williams, Dr. Talcott, anecdote of 
Woodrow Wilson, 307 

Williams, John Sharp, signs cable to 
Wilson appealing for help for 
Armenia, 340 

Wilson, George Grafton, in campaign 
of League to Enforce Peace, 301 

Wilson, Joseph, devotion to his 
brother Woodrow, 154 

Wilson, President Woodrow, pre- 
^ ^ sented with typewriter, 93; defies 
state bosses, 122; why attracted to, 
128, 129; at the Free Synagogue 
Dinner, 130; taking Borah's meas- 
ure, 130; Presidential candidacy, 
132; the hope of political regener- 
ation, 135; introduces Walter Hines 
Page, 136; explanation of the 
"cocked-hat" letter, 140; speech at 
Jackson Day Dinner, 143; com- 
ment on Champ Clark-Col. Harvey 
episode, 149; Campaign of 1912, 
150; asks reconsideration of refusal 
to accept chairmanship of Finance 
Committee, 152; elected President, 
159; asks acceptance of Ambassa- 
dorship of Turkey, 160; instruc- 
tions on leaving to assume post of 
Ambassador to Turkey, 175; re- 
election in 1916, not thought possi- 
ble by party leaders, 234; atti- 
tude toward New York Post- 
mastersliip appointment, 238; re- 
nominated at St. Louis Conven- 
tion, 241; election night returns 



^o^ t7 



454 



INDEX 



seem to show defeat, 246; election 
assured, 248; report to on trips to 
battle fronts, 274; letter advising 
exposure of German intrigue, 297; 
at Metropolitan Opera House 
gathering, 304; attitude toward 
Lane as Director-General of In- 
ternational Red Cross, 318; the 
hope of tlie Peace Conference, 323; 
at signing of Peace Treaty, 336; 
discuss Polish Mission witli, and 
propose Armenian Mission to, 338; 
cable to from America proposing 
this Mission, 339; appoints com- 
mission to investigate treatment of 
Jews in Poland, 352; Insists on 
having a Jew on commission to in- 
vestigate Polish pogroms, 354 

Wilson, Mrs. Woodrow, claims the 
President's typewriter, 93; at sign- 
ing of Peace Treaty, 336 

Winthrop, Henry Rogers, on Board 
of Directors of Metropolitan Opera 
Company, 100 

Wise, Dr. Stephen S., speaks at Con- 
ried's funeral, 105; urges accep- 
tance of Ambassadorship to Tur- 
key, 162; acquaints President 
Wilson with his plans for Zionism, 
293 

Wise Centenary Fund, Isaac M., 



speech at dinner of Executive Com- 
mittee, 294 

"Wish-bone speech" at Sulzer dinner, 
169 

Woerishoefer, Carola, 107 
^WolflF, Lucien, representing Jews of 
England at Peace Conference, 350 

Woman's activities in the war, 299 

Women in Turkey, their position, 195 

Woodruff, Lieutenant-Governor, at 
Roosevelt's fusion meeting, 280 

Wood, Sir Henry, 188 

World, New York, danger of defec- 
tion, owing to Postmastership ap- 
pointment, 238, 240 

Yeaman, George H., 19, 30 
Young Turks, government a failure, 
196 

Zermoysky, Countess, at reception in 
Warsaw, 364 

Zionism, article in New York Times, 
289; a fallacy in Poland, 383; a 
surrender not a solution, 385; its 
economic aspect, 393; its political 
foundations, 395; a spiritual will- 
o'-the-wisp, 398 
/ Zionists, their Nationalistic plans not 
favoured, 349; present their case to 
Mission at Warsaw, 363 



W 53 












^ 

% 



• • • ■: 






1^ "^9 









c^" 



••'•* 



.<'^ 



«. ^— '. 



9^ .'^'^Ua 






>' 













p a o ' 





"■I' 



>' 






'2* 












■r 











^^ 






■ e * 




5* .^ % 









« • o^ 







